


Impossible Things Before Breakfast

by tigbit



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alice in Wonderland References, Alternate Universe, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 21:07:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5555378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigbit/pseuds/tigbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An <span class="u">Alice in Wonderland</span> AU in which Jensen is a ninja when it comes to baked goods. All is well until Jared magically appears in his kitchen in Wonderland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old, old fic of mine. I'm uploading here for good measure and safe keeping. In writing this, I picked and chose details from both Disney’s Alice in Wonderland and Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I’m sorry if this confuses anyone. It’s a strange, hybrid mix of the two, to be honest. I did not, however, read or use Carroll’s sequel in any way.

_"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked._  
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."  
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.  
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."  


\- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 6

\--

The thing is, Jensen makes excellent pie. 

He can make excellent cake too, of course. Muffins don’t really pose a challenge. Cookies, crumbles, macaroons, bread, scones, tartlets, and soufflés are almost laughably simple, but he’ll happily make them anyway because this is what he does best. 

His cottage never smells like anything other than a bakery, just like his floor never manages to escape its need for a daily mop. Flour flies everywhere, berries stain and smush, and the piles of sugar are nearly obscene. Ruffling his hair can be an interesting experience, yielding anything from crumbs to toothpicks, and Jensen’s fairly certain he hasn’t once looked into a mirror in recent memory without needing to reach for a towel. 

It’s exactly the way he likes it. 

Everyone in Wonderland knows him, from the King and Queen (both partial to ginger cupcakes) to the nest of caterpillars near The Very Dark Forest (plum and peach pie). He doesn’t need the money, but his customers insist on paying him anyway: handing over coins or spare teakettles or magical kitchen knives when they stop by for a pickup. Jensen keeps his gifts where he finds the space, sometimes tacking on new rooms to his cottage, building shelves that stretch to the ceiling. 

As baking is somewhat of an indoor sport, all of this is not to say he isn’t adventurous. Jensen enjoys his walks in the evenings; he enjoys looking at the sky and the bright stars. If Misha’s in town, they’ll stop at The Three Spades and drink something equal parts disgusting and wonderful. Misha will smoke on his pipe and grin when he gets to a particularly amazing part of a story and Jensen feels at peace. The chaos of his younger years in Wonderland is seemingly over: the new King and Queen are gentle rulers and there’s not much to fear. 

So Jensen bakes and he walks and he enjoys the singing flowers when they’re in tune and he’s convinced he’s content. Only on the darkest nights does he think about before and wonder. His eyes will stray to the dusty cupboard and he’ll think of what it holds, but he knows he’ll never touch the key. 

It’s not worth it.

Life is fairly consistent in Wonderland. Consistently crazy, perhaps, but the days blur by in flashes of baked goods and small adventures until Jensen knows his youngest days are behind him. Misha tells him he looks 25 and Jensen can hardly believe it, even if he knows it must be true. 

“Remember when you couldn’t bake a scone?” Misha teases him one night at the pub, knocking his stein against Jensen’s own. The small lodge is packed, the loud voices of the drunk bouncing off the walls and through smoke. “It tasted like ash.”

Jensen ruffles. “I’ve never baked a scone that tasted like ash,” he says, but he’s studiously looking at the table, examining the dents. Damn Misha and his memory.

Misha snorts. “Fine. It tasted like lemon.”

“Thank yo—”

“Dipped in ash.” 

Jensen looks up and narrows his eyes, but Misha’s grinning and there’s really no point. He sighs. “Lies,” he mutters, just to be contrary. “All lies.”

Misha hums his response and after a quick second of deliberation, pulls a well-worn and coffee-stained map from his back pocket. He sips at his beer as he looks, tracing a finger across raised mountains and along rivers. He’ll leave soon for another adventure, Jensen knows, and he can tell by the way Misha’s lip quirks up when he’s found what he’s looking for. 

“Where to, this time?” Jensen asks, knowing it could be absolutely anywhere at all.

“Back to the mountains, I think. My legs need the stretch and I miss their wine.” Misha looks half-dazed when he says it, like he can already taste it on his tongue. “Such amazing wine. Also? I promised them some dodo eggs. Gotta deliver.”

Jensen finishes his beer before he asks, “How long you think you’ll be gone?”

Misha shrugs, careless. “However long I’m gone, most likely,” he says, completely honest, and Jensen rolls his eyes. Of course. 

They say goodbye outside, Misha leaving even sooner than Jensen had expected, and Jensen watches as he waves his farewell and disappears down the road. 

It’s a quiet and peaceful night. Jensen passes a number of Brown Rabbits, all of them lost, but encounters no one else on his way home. He doesn’t bother locking his door, so it’s only a quick push before he’s inside, the smell of baked apples still lingering from his pies. All’s well and fine except—

There’s a man on his floor. 

Jensen blinks. And blinks again. He blinks quite a number of times, but none of them seem to explain the sudden and bizarre appearance of someone passed out on his kitchen floor. Absently, he’s pleased he remembered to mop. 

“Er,” he starts, but stops himself. What exactly is the protocol for such a thing? Hesitantly walking closer, Jensen takes in the long, _long_ body and the man’s floppy brown hair. There are no snores to be heard, just the softness of even and deep breaths. The man’s face is smushed against the floor, but it’s a kind face that doesn’t scream much of anything dangerous, so Jensen feels comfortable enough trying to move him. 

Which is a ridiculous idea, he discovers, because the stranger weighs more than Jensen’s old uncle Albert, the one with the cane and the fondness for sweets. He’s all muscle and trim hips and long appendages and Jensen’s just incredibly confused. He does manage to turn the stranger on his back, but Jensen knows he’s not going to get much further without some kind of cooperation. 

“Um,” he tries again. “Hello?”

Nothing.

“Could you maybe, uh. Could you maybe wake up? Please?” When he’s still answered with silence, Jensen sighs, finally a bit irritated that someone decided to lay claim to his kitchen floor. “Look, you’re really fucking heavy and—”

“Blergh.” The man coughs out a nonsense word and stirs the slightest bit, eyes moving behind their lids. “M’sor—m’sorry.” 

Jensen considers a semi-full sentence something of an improvement, and he finds himself patting the stranger’s shoulder awkwardly, wondering what he should do. His eyes travel over to his couch and his quilt and then the decision’s made. Whoever the guy is, he doesn’t seem to deserve the headache that would inevitably come from sleeping on a stone floor. 

“Really hope you’re not a murderer, man.” Jensen huffs, using what little cooperation the stranger gives him in order to haul him over to the couch. “That might make me feel real dumb in the morning.”

“Sorry, sorry,” is the only thing the man has to offer, his words sleepy and slurred. 

With a gigantic effort, Jensen manages to get him on the couch. It’s not long enough for him, but it’s unlikely the man even notices. Without thinking, Jensen grabs his quilt and drapes it over him before going about finding some light. 

He finds his matches and lights the lamp on the kitchen table, as well as a few on the walls. By the time he’s finished, the kitchen and small living room are both bathed in a soft light, reddening the edges of his furniture and walls. He finds a cup of water he hadn’t bothered to drink earlier and walks back to the stranger, figuring he won’t really mind. 

Seeing him in the light, Jensen can better appreciate the man’s face. He’s young—younger than Jensen—but his body leads Jensen to believe he must be in his early 20s. Long hair falls in his eyes and Jensen has to resist the urge to grab his kitchen shears and chop them off into something more manageable. He must be fully asleep again; he’s quiet and still, but must have moved enough to shift the quilt to the floor. 

Wondering why he’s even bothering, Jensen sighs and picks it up. He stands up, shakes it, and stops before he does anything else because—fuck. 

In the light, Jensen can see the man’s clothes. His heart thuds in his chest and his limbs refuse to move because _fuck_ , the guy’s wearing a t-shirt. The stranger on Jensen’s couch is wearing a t-shirt and jeans and some kind of distressed leather boots and all Jensen can think is _wrong, wrong, wrong_. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” He tries to yell, but the words come out in a strained whisper. His hands shake. “How the hell did you get here?” 

And then the man disappears. 

\--

Jensen wakes up the next morning, half-convinced the night before was a dream. He pads out into the kitchen and mindlessly gropes through his cupboard for the blueberries (he’s thinking muffins, maybe a tartlet, and _loads_ of sugar) when the mussed-up couch catches his eye. He’s instantly more awake. And grumpy. 

The face of the stranger is still burned into the back of his eyelids. And no matter how hard he tries to forget, he can still remember the outline of the man’s body, the fucking t-shirt and his long, long legs. 

He hasn’t seen that kind of clothing in years. _Years_. Thinking of what this might mean sends an icy shock through his spine. How could they have found him? The sense of security Jensen’s ceaselessly carried with him throughout his time in Wonderland fades a little in doubt. 

Coffee, it is.

\--

The rest of the morning is much more manageable, if frustrating. Jensen bakes himself into a frenzy, whipping eggs and spilling sugar and being too careless with his flour. His cooking skills are off in a way they haven’t been in ages and it’s upsetting, really, to see bread that refuses to rise. 

“You’re being stubborn,” he says to the fifth loaf of tacky, unhelpfully flat bread, and then hates himself a little. He’s been reduced to speaking to his food and _this is not who he is_. Jensen is a magic-maker with an oven. He’s a fucking ninja in the kitchen and he used to believe this down to his bones, so the arrival and subsequent disappearance of a hot guy in his cottage should not really make a difference. 

So he tries again. 

“I hate you,” Jensen grits out, when his sixth loaf comes out of the oven looking like a muddy piece of brick. “A lot,” he adds for good measure, and then he goes for a walk.

\--

Jensen returns to his cottage later in the day, mildly happier with the world. Mildred was rather surprised to see him, as Jensen typically tries to give witches a wide berth. He couldn’t help but frown when she opened her door, the smells of cooked frogs and earthy roots attacking his nose. He’s never understood why witches refuse to devote any kind of time into aroma. He says as much, but Mildred just narrows her eyes and tells him to stand in a rose garden. As this sounds like clever advice, Jensen is all too eager to comply, but he makes sure to ask his burning question first. 

No, she replies, witches are not capable of magically appearing and disappearing. The witches in Wonderland are healers more than anything else, and their spell-making is nothing if not dodgy to the core. None of them really have the desire or know-how to shrink a toad, much less take a nap on Jensen’s floor. 

“Anything else?” Jensen asks, a tinge of panic making its way into his voice. “No one else in Wonderland could do that? Elves?”

Mildred blinks at him, the spoon she’d carried to the door dripping something nasty near his shoes. “There are no elves in Wonderland,” she says slowly.

“Yes, yes. Well.” Jensen waves his hand about, a bit flustered. “What about dwarves? The roses? Are the peonies acting strange, these days?”

“You need to leave.”

So Jensen does, leaving Mildred’s house to take a quick jog around his favorite lake. He catalogues the world as he goes and happily, it all seems quite normal. Men aren’t falling out of the sky, the grass is as vibrantly green as ever, and the caterpillars are wonderfully high from their pipes. And if there isn’t a grand kind of bounce in his step as he walks up to his door, Jensen is still reasonably re-convinced he can bake a decent loaf of bread. 

All of this wonderful hope for normality is smashed, of course, as he opens his door to see the man from the night before sitting at his kitchen table. 

“Hi,” the stranger says sheepishly, and waves. 

“You disappeared,” Jensen says dumbly.

“Yeah…” the man agrees, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I kind of did.”

Jensen nods, held together by some bewildering sort of calmness. “Right,” he says, and his stomach starts to ache because _what the hell is he supposed to say_. They stand there for at least a minute longer—the stranger bites his lip and eventually looks down at the table, and Jensen desperately tries to quench the urge to feed him one of his pies. His hands itch to attack his cupboard and fill the silence with the sound of setting silverware.

He coughs instead, and realizes his heart is frantically attempting to escape his chest. There’s no question: even if the man wasn’t wearing a beat-up pair of Converse and a hoodie, he’s never been to Wonderland. His eyes are still focused on the table and his back is too straight on the chair. He is very much an _other_ and Jensen’s head hurts from the implications. 

Jensen does find his voice eventually, making the conscious decision to remain calm. Panicking at this point would only endanger his crockery. “So, you,” he starts, and has to stop to rest his back against the nearest wall. “Who are you?”

The stranger looks relieved at this question, shifting in his seat to better face Jensen. “I’m Jared,” he says slowly, and Jensen notes that his hands are open and up faced on his lap. “And I—I think you already know I’m not from here.”

“You disappeared,” Jensen repeats. 

“Right,” Jared nods, and licks his lips. “I did, and—shit. I have no idea how to explain.” He stops to rub at his eyes and sighs. His eyes are on the table again, intensely studying the notched wood. 

When the silence stretches on for too long, Jensen can’t help it. “Would you like some pie?” he asks quickly, but he’s already moving towards the cupboard. The decision’s been made: he’ll get the cherry. Everyone likes the way he makes the cherry. “I’m getting you some pie. We’re eating pie.”

Jared looks immeasurably grateful and offers up a small smile. Jensen gives him a shaky but helpless one in return and feels a little foolish because there should be screaming. There should be yelling and panic and enormously tall men being kicked outside and forbidden to return. Instead, Jensen picks up two of his nicer plates and a pie and returns to the table, wondering if he should make tea.

He does.

They eat in semi-silence, and for as bewildered as Jensen is, he still feels a big bubble of pride in his belly when Jared moans at his first bite. “This is fucking _ridiculously_ good,” he says, and proceeds to eat half of the pie by himself. He’s shameless about his love for it, and Jensen can’t help but feel the beginnings of fondness eat away at his suspicion. How bad can someone be, really, when they enjoy his baked goods? He proudly gazes on as Jared decimates his second and third helpings.

“This is very strange,” Jensen finally says, once they’ve both finished. At least twenty minutes have passed from the second he stepped in the door and neither of them have yet to say anything of importance. Or of non-importance. “You—all of this? It’s very strange.”

“Yeah,” Jared says slowly, “I’d have to agree.” He looks decidedly uncomfortable again, hands twisting about in his lap without the distraction of food. 

First things first. “How did you get here?” Jensen tries to keep his voice as neutral as possible, but it’s hard not to sound a little accusatory. 

Jared swallows spit and returns to biting his lip. He sneaks up a glance at Jensen, almost assessing, before bringing his eyes back down to the table. “It’s a little difficult to explain,” he says, and Jensen can tell he’s picking his words very carefully. Navigating a verbal minefield. “One minute I’m at the hospital, you know? Visiting a friend. And the next I’m—” He stops to wave his hand at Jensen’s kitchen. “Here.”

“Oh,” is really the only thing Jensen can manage. He’s never really entertained the thought that someone else could stumble across Wonderland, but he supposes it’s not _entirely_ impossible. Yet, “You don’t remember anything? Nothing you did or saw that led you here?” 

Jared screws his face up, obviously thinking back. “Well, there was a, uh. Kind of like a rabbit hole?” He says it like he’s unsure, perhaps a little embarrassed. 

“Oh,” Jensen says again, and inexplicably, feels a bit of excitement bubble up in his veins. He’s never been alone in Wonderland—not ever—but the idea of knowing someone else with the same kind of history is enormously appealing. “So you fell, or…?”

Surprisingly, Jared gives a little laugh. “Tripped, actually.” 

“You tripped into the rabbit hole and landed on my floor?”

Jared still looks a bit uneasy, but he nods. “That’s right.” He continues on before Jensen can ask the next question. “I dunno. I got here, I knew I was someplace else, but it’s like I was drugged. I kinda remember you helping me to the couch, but I felt weird again, you know? Like I did when I tripped. I blinked and I was back home.”

“And then today?”

Jared shrugs, still looking mildly embarrassed. “I saw the hole again, and—”

“You were curious?” Jensen finishes for him, and he supposes that anyone else might find Jared’s explanation weak and senseless, but of course he understands. It’s exactly what led him back, each and every time. At least until the end. 

Jared cautiously nods, but he does look a little more relaxed. Less like Jensen’s about to slam his fingers in the cupboard or bloody up a kitchen knife. “I was curious,” is all he says, and offers up a small smile that is actually quite adorable. It makes him look less like a scared 3 foot child and more like a handsome adult. 

Jensen approves.

“Would you like to know where you are?” Now that he’s reasonably convinced Jared’s more of a clumsy giant than a scheming murderer-type, he feels more relaxed. And eager, if he must admit. He’s never gotten to share this before. 

Jared offers back a crooked half-smile. “Yeah, man.” He laughs. “Where the hell am I?”

Jensen doesn’t have to close his eyes to picture the singing flowers or the nest of caterpillars down the road. He can smell the sweetness of the grass and see the explosions of color at sunset, more vivid than anything Jared’s ever seen. He thinks about the castle and the Card Soldiers and the white roses and he smiles before he can help it. 

“You’re in Wonderland.”

\--

Jared pops away before Jensen gets a chance to say much more, but they do have time to properly introduce themselves. Jensen learns that Jared’s from Texas, hears about his sister and his brother and where he went to school, among other things. And it’s the other things that Jensen likes to know the best, like how Jared collects buttons out of worry he’ll never have the one he needs, and his belief that nothing Jensen ever bakes will compare to his momma’s French toast. 

Jensen says a few things, too. He’s never really shared his past with anyone here—hasn’t ever wanted to—and he skips over a great deal, but admits he once had a sister and a brother, himself. A mother and a father who enjoyed the opera and ate fish every Friday. He prefers to talk about his time here, glossing over his first few years in Wonderland and sharing his favorite stories instead. He laughs when he explains the caterpillars and Jared looks faint. He doesn’t believe Jensen, of course, but that will soon change. 

Jensen can tell when Jared’s time is nearly up. He notices the shakiness of Jared’s hands, a slight increase in breath, and Jared must know it too because he says goodbye in a strained voice, that he’ll come back as soon as he can. 

With Jared gone, Jensen zips into action. He’d never really cared about the state of his cottage before. Misha is used to sleeping on dirt and ferns and also _smells_ of dirt and ferns and therefore is in no place to judge, and none of his other visitors stay long enough to judge. Suddenly, though, he feels a burning need to clean. 

He straightens up his countertops, rearranging things he’d been meaning to change for years. He dusts his shelves and wonders if perhaps Jared would like a lesson in cooking and the thought pleases him more than anything has in recent memory. 

Jensen frowns when he cleans his room, his bed never looking smaller or more mocking. Blushing for no reason at all, he changes his sheets and kicks his brain black and blue because what he’s thinking will probably never happen. 

Still.

If Jared looked skittish at the idea of weed-loving caterpillars, Jensen supposes he might feel a bit uncomfortable resting at the Inn. He rationalizes getting out the spare blankets and pillow _just in case_ because what if Jared learns to control it? What if he decides to stay longer and wants to enjoy a nap? It would be ridiculously rude to be a bad host, Jensen decides, and fluffs the pillow twice before putting it on the couch. 

Hours later, Jensen surveys the tidiness of his cottage and realizes it’s nighttime. He’s tired in a pleasant way and even though he shouldn’t, he guesses what type of tartlet Jared might like and sets about organizing his ingredients. He settles on chocolate. And a strawberry and a blueberry peach. For good measure, of course.

\--

The next morning, Jensen starts to feel a little ridiculous. The tartlets he’d made the night before look amazing and fresh (as they always do, thank you), but if he agonizes over his use of dark versus white chocolate for another second, he’s fairly sure he’ll lose whatever’s left of his sanity. Besides, there’s no use waiting for someone who may or may not come back. 

Jensen hopes he’ll come back.

In an effort to feel less like a fifteen year old girl, Jensen decides to go for another walk. He takes the same route he always has, eventually running into Florence on the final stretch. She’s a stately blue rose, thorns perfect and sharp, and she’s fond of him for reasons unknown. 

“Missed you yesterday,” she says when he passes. “Didn’t catch you on your evening walk.”

“Mmm,” Jensen tries to stay non-committal, fiercely hoping nothing about his stance screams _I didn’t take a walk yesterday because I was entertaining a guest whose face I most decidedly did_ not _jerk off to this morning_. “Was busy.”

“Mildred tried to stop by, you know.” Florence arches a little more into the light, stretching her petals. She looks back at Jensen, all innocence. “Said she heard voices.”

Damn Mildred and her curiosity. The last time she stopped by, Jensen barely knew how to operate his oven. It’s been _years_. His stupid questions must have alerted her witchy senses. 

Neutral. He must sound neutral. “Oh?” he says, and pokes at a clump of grass with his foot for added effect. 

“Who was over?” 

Jensen curses her directness. “A friend,” he hedges, even though that might not quite be true at the moment. He has no idea how Jared feels, or if he’d even want to think of Jensen that way. But they _will_ be friends, surely. Jensen feels like he’s a friendly guy. Jared ate his pie, after all. Clearly they are near if not _on_ the road to friendship. 

“Honey?”

Jensen blinks, Florence coming back into view. It’s a bright, clear day, and her petals remind Jensen of the oceans he’d seen on postcards as a little kid. Hyper-real and terribly vivid. “Yep?” he answers.

“Who was over?” she asks again, only slower.

“A friend,” Jensen repeats, and fiercely hopes that’s the end of it. Casting his eyes back to his cottage, he realizes that he is for some reason unwilling to share Jared just yet—as if mentioning his existence would somehow lower the odds of his return. Another part of his brain wonders how Jared would be treated; while he’s fairly confident no one in Wonderland would really care, they’re bound to notice. 

“I see.” Florence seems caught between amusement and concern. “I hope you shared some of your pie.”

“Cherry,” Jensen says faintly, because his attention is elsewhere, caught on the blurry half-formed image floating behind his window. It’s rather far away and he supposes he _could_ be making it up, but what kind of potential friend would he be if he didn’t investigate? “I’ve gotta go,” he manages to say, and hardly waits for Florence’s goodbye before trotting back to his cottage. 

\--

Nearly to the door, Jensen’s convinced the mysterious shape was a trick of the light. But then there’s the unmistakable sound of clattering pans and a very Jared-sounding _motherfucking ow_ and Jensen’s smiling before his hand touches the knob. 

A welcome kind of thrill zips from his fingers to his toes when he sees Jared on the floor, hand rubbing at his head as he pointedly frowns at the fallen pans. 

“Gravity’s a bitch,” Jensen says, by way of greeting. 

Jared flinches, first shocked, then a bit sheepish. “Hey, man,” he says warmly, “I, uh. Would you believe I was looking for a glass of water?”

“Do you normally go around snooping in other people’s cabinets?” Jensen asks instead of answering, but he’s not unkind. He makes sure to smile a little smile when he steps closer, surveying the damage. He’s not sure how Jared managed to get so many of them down at once; they’re littered around his feet like a graveyard of steel and iron. “I see you’ve met my pans.”

Jared lowers his hand from his head, sighing. “We’ve been acquainted, yes.” 

“Indeed,” Jensen agrees, still smiling, and stops himself before he puts his hands on his hips. “Wanna help clean up? I’ll get you your water first.”

“’Course,” Jared says, and takes the hand Jensen outstretches, using the leverage to heft himself up. Standing, Jensen’s reminded again how fucking tall Jared is; he hasn’t felt so small in ages, although that’s likely a side-effect of speaking to various shrubs and flowers on a daily basis. Hard not to feel mighty when you’re talking to something a foot tall. 

His floor isn’t that dirty, but Jensen suggests washing the dishes anyway. Apparently he’s not strong enough to pass up the opportunity to see Jared with a towel and wet hands. In any case, no running water means Jared’s introduced to the well water Jensen had pumped earlier. “How long’s that been sitting there?” Jared asks when Jensen pours it into his faucet-less sink. 

“Not long,” Jensen says, grabbing for the soap. He hands a towel to Jared and tries not to feel giddy about the fact that Jared smells amazing. Jensen is a _girl_ , but he powers through. “And it wouldn’t matter, anyway. You’re not gonna get sick here. At least not from that.” 

Jared stops looking at the towel in his hands. “No colds or nothing? Diseases?”

Jensen shakes his head. “Nah.” He scrubs at the first pan, the water touching the sink already magically hot. “Broken bones, sure. Concussions and scratches. But other than that, I’m pretty sure being a doctor in Wonderland is a slow-paced job.”

“Huh,” Jared says, mindlessly rubbing off the water on the pan Jensen finishes. “Sounds pretty safe.”

“It is,” Jensen says, and basks in the truth of it. 

They continue washing, and if Jensen is uncharacteristically slow with his scrubbing, that’s no one’s business but his own. His heart warms a little when he catches Jared sneaking glances at Jensen’s hands like it’s a show he hasn’t paid to see, fearful of getting caught. When he’s not peeking, he’s looking out the glazed window, squinting at the landscape. Which only cements Jensen’s next plan.

“Ready to go outside?”

\-- 

Jensen surprises himself by feeling a little embarrassed when they’re standing at the door. Wonderland’s not exactly his creation, but he feels a bit protective of it, nevertheless. He’s shaped its history, constantly revels in what he knows is technically abnormal and bizarre. Jensen has always loved the color and the impossibility of Wonderland; it’s freeing to walk around in something so undisciplined and alive and he’s never shared it before, not with anyone. Jared is without a doubt the first stranger Jensen has ever seen here, and he pauses with his hand on the doorknob, biting his lip. 

_He’s not going to like it_ , a voice tells him, cruel and sharp. _He’ll take one look at it and run away and it’ll be just like you feared it would. He’ll be_ disgusted. _Disgusted with what you love._

“Shut up,” Jensen whispers, and studiously ignores the way Jared cocks his head. He takes another moment to breathe, then glances up at Jared’s face. He seems calm and curious, everything about his stance screaming a fond kind of patience. He offers up a small smile when he notices Jensen’s inspection. 

“We don’t have to,” Jared says, reaching out a hand to tug Jensen’s away from the door. And then he laughs, “You know I’m always up for more pie.”

“No,” Jensen insists, suddenly feeling ridiculous. “It’s fine, I don’t even know why I’m—”

Jared cuts him off with a shrug. “It’s your home,” is all he says, and even steps away from the door, giving Jensen the clear option to end it all. To leave the door untouched and try another day. “I mean, I can’t promise I won’t be surprised. But I wouldn’t be—I wouldn’t be _judging_ you, or anything. For whatever’s out there.”

A big part of Jensen disagrees with that, but Jared’s words give him the confidence to put his hand back on the door, ready to push. “Nah,” Jensen says, finding assurance in Jared’s understanding smile. “Let’s go.” 

And then the door’s opening, flooding the cottage with the brightness of the sun. Clean air rushes in, and Jensen reaches back a hand to grab Jared’s own, tugging him out onto the grass. 

It’s kind of marvelous, standing there together. Jensen takes in the green of the hills and the cloudless sky for a moment before turning to look at Jared. He looks _enraptured_ , mouth open and eyes constantly fluttering from one thing to the next. 

“Oh god,” he says, softly. Awed. “It’s so bright.”

“It is,” Jensen agrees, and it’s only when Jared starts to move toward the nearest tree that he realizes Jared’s still holding his hand. He could let go, but he lets himself be tugged instead, helpless but to follow. Jared’s hand is warm and dry in his own.

“Holy shit!” Jared releases Jensen’s hand to reach up to stroke a low-hanging branch. “Are the leaves—are they changing colors?”

“Oh, uh.” Jensen squints at the reddish leaves, which do slowly morph from pink to red to gold and back again. Huh. Of course he’s _noticed_ this before, but it’s been years since he’s thought of it as anything but normal. “I guess they do.” 

“Amazing,” Jared whispers, eyes and fingers still tracing the shapes of the leaves. 

Jensen isn’t allowed to revel in the moment for very long; there’s a sharp tug on the side of his pants, and he stiffens, knowing without looking down that the tugger has paws, not fingers, and is likely bunny-shaped. 

He looks down. It is, indeed, a Brown Rabbit. 

“Rats,” he says, and fervently hopes that Jared will be too entranced by the tree to turn around, but Jensen’s already heard the sharp intake of breath. It’s a little too late.

The rabbit’s nose gives a sharp twitch. “There really aren’t any rats to be seen,” it says primly, before resuming its nervous little shuffle. “I’m afraid I’m a bit lost, you see. I’m looking for the Inn? Beds and cooking and the like. I was so terribly certain it was over _there_ but _there_ isn’t where it is and so I looked _here_ and _here_ isn’t where it is, either. It’s quite frustrating, having looked here and there and yet still finding oneself lost. I was very much hoping you could direct me.”

“Um,” Jensen says.

“Oh, god,” Jared says.

The Rabbit blinks. “Those are not directions,” it says helpfully, before giving a little sniff. “And directions, as I’ve said, are what I would like.”

There’s likely not much to be done for Jared at this point, so Jensen sighs and leans down a bit to point out the correct hill. A good many minutes are wasted on double and triple confirmations and numerous false starts until the rabbit bounces off into the distance. 

Jensen turns around, biting his lip.

Jared’s hand slips off the tree rather suddenly, the lack of weight snapping the branch up enough to disturb various insects. There’s a quick buzzing as a few bees fly away, followed by a collection of sleepy ladybugs. They unknowingly head off in the same direction as the Brown Rabbit, woozy and uncoordinated. 

“I think maybe, I,” Jared holds his breath as an eight-winged butterfly merrily floats by, “I think my sanity’s—I think I’ve lost it.”

The utter seriousness in Jared’s voice tugs up the corners of Jensen’s mouth. He keeps the amusement out of his voice, though. “Sounds like bad news.”

Jensen swears he hears a small squeak escape Jared’s mouth when the butterfly lands near a flower, which promptly starts to sing its hello. “I would say it’s bad news, yes,” Jared somehow manages to say, eyes blinking rapidly. “I’d say I’m—yes. Bad news.” His eyes are still glued to the butterfly and the flower, and it’s hard not to feel a little pity. Jensen takes in the rigidness of Jared’s body and the quick, snappish blinks of his eyes, like the strangeness of Jensen’s world is an irritant he’s hoping to flush away. 

“C’mon,” Jensen says finally, and moves to grab the tips of Jared’s fingers. “We’re gonna go back inside. Think you’ve seen enough for one day.” 

Jared makes a quiet, nonsensical sound, which Jensen interprets as agreement. He lets himself be led back to the cottage, although he doesn’t quite have enough presence of mind to open the door. Jensen sighs and does it for him, hand moving to press lightly between Jared’s shoulder blades, pushing him past the threshold. He watches as Jared quickly scuttles over to the couch, flopping down and grabbing Jensen’s quilt in one jerky motion. The quilt is promptly pulled up over Jared’s head which, in all honesty, is probably for the best. 

Jensen studies him. Jared’s feet hang over the edges of the couch’s arm, too big to be contained, and Jensen can hear Jared’s muffled yet frantic repetition of The Star Spangled Banner. 

So it does ache, a little, that this happened, even though Jensen knew it was to be expected. He lets another fresh wave of embarrassment and irk wash through his heart ( _knew_ Jared would hate it, _knew_ he’d want to run away) before he remembers the unabashed awe he’d seen on Jared’s face in the beginning. Like maybe there was something good about Jensen’s blue sky and the greenness of the grass. 

He allows himself a tired smile and then sighs, hands reaching for tea. 

\--

Jared disappears somewhere around the second cup of coffee, the tea having been no help at all. He has the grace to appear somewhat embarrassed about his reaction near the end, but Jensen waves it off and tells him not to worry with more honesty than he truly feels. Then he offers Jared a scone. 

Jensen stress bakes when Jared pops away, filling up his counters and kitchen table and spare table and a fair bit of his nightstand with desserts before he begins to think he may have a bit of a problem. Jared’s reaction was _natural_ , all things considered, but that doesn’t mean that Jensen can’t warp it into something to worry about. He frosts the cakes with their appropriate messages (Eat Me, Eat Me Quickly, and Eat Me, Preferably on a Sunny Day) until his fingers cramp and all the while he tries not to think about Jared’s hands. He wonders how pathetic he should feel that he wants to hold them again, then banishes the thought. Violently.

He bakes until the squeak of the oven door sounds more like a pained groan, then he forces himself outside. 

It’s a nice night. Jared’s been gone for hours and the sun’s safely hidden away in the sky. Nighttime in Wonderland is as peaceful and strange as it is in the daylight and Jensen finds himself wandering over to a tall hill, climbing and slipping until he reaches the top. 

The view is spectacular and comforting, like it always is. Jensen closes his eyes and breathes in the air, trying to pick out the aromas of different flowers, and considers the benefits of having an indoors-only friend. How much sunlight does one person really need, anyway? Surely there are a healthy number of activities to be had in houses. He wonders if he could blindfold Jared and lead him to the Inn, although perhaps that would not be wise. There is a rather high chance of tripping and frankly, Jared seems rather prone. But—

“How do you not weigh 700 pounds?”

“Jesus _christ_!” Despite the sudden shock, some part of Jensen’s brain still finds the capacity to be amazed at the shrillness of his scream. His eyes fly open and he twists around, tripping on his feet. He’s prepared for the inevitably of hitting the ground when he slips, but then there’s a strong hand on his side. A hand and a familiar laugh. 

Panting, Jensen takes in the sight of his rescuer. The fear drops a couple of notches when he recognizes the gigantic frame, but he still has to swallow before he croaks out, “ _Jared_?”

“Or 800, even,” Jared laughs.

Lost. Jensen is already so lost. “What are you—what?”

“I’ve never seen someone bake so much in my life, dude,” Bastard as he is, Jared’s still kind of chuckling, but he finally removes his hand. Jensen feels the loss of contact immediately, a hand-shaped space on his ribs left cooler than he’d like. “There was a cupcake in your plant pot. I was kinda scared to move, to be honest.”

“Oh,” Jensen says, still feeling upward of two steps behind the conversation. “Yes, well. I was—” He stops when he realizes who he’s talking to and where. “Jared! You’re outside!” 

“I am,” Jared confirms happily, and takes a quick peek around like he has to confirm it for himself. “Came back to apologize and then when you weren’t home, thought I might as well explore.”

Jensen blinks at this new information. He’s shocked and amazed and more than a little proud to see Jared standing in front of him but something seems a little off because,

“Jared, you were scared of a butterfly,” Jensen says, blunt. 

“Mmm,” Jared agrees, but he seems more interested in the mass of flowers by Jensen’s feet. He smiles when they starting humming their goodnights, seemingly genuinely enraptured by the sound. “I got over it.”

“You got over it,” Jensen repeats.

“Well, I woke up back home, right?” Jared tears his eyes away from the ground, focusing in on Jensen instead. His face is relaxed and calm – happy – and Jensen has such a hard time reconciling the Jared of Now with the Jared of Earlier. “And I was, uh. I was at my parent’s house, before I came to visit you this morning. I’ve been with them for the holidays. But anyway.” He stops again to shrug and smile. “After the whole butterfly incident, I woke up and took my sister to the movies and it was just the crappiest, shittiest thing ever. Aliens with two fingers and ray guns and kamikaze bluebirds and talking lampposts and just—it was really ridiculous, right? And, I dunno. If I can wrap my mind around that so easily, why can’t I do it in Wonderland?” 

“This isn’t a low-budget sci-fi, Jared,” Jensen says slowly. 

“No, no. It’s not,” Jared agrees quickly, eyebrows scrunched in earnestness. “It just helped, is all. Made me realize I was kind of overreacting.”

Jensen doesn’t have much to say to that, especially because Jared was likely _not_ overreacting in the slightest. Still, best not to throw away something he’s extremely grateful for. “That’s great, man,” he says instead, and means it. 

“It’s amazing, is what it is. And, you know,” Jared stops to shrug again, attention already being pulled away by the sight of something in the distance. “I trust you. You’d let me know if there was anything worth worrying about.”

The carelessly honest way Jared says it is enough to make Jensen look away, fighting an unexpected blush. He coughs to help clear his head, but Jared’s not even paying attention. Jensen turns to follow Jared’s gaze to the sight of two rabbits outlined in moonlight, arguing over a map. 

“So,” Jared starts, still staring at the rabbits. They’re tugging at either side of the map now, and Jensen can almost see the rip before it happens. It does, of course, which only sets off a new line of paw-pointing and angry words. “I’m guessing rabbits without a sense of direction is more of a genetic thing and less of a wacky coincidence?”

Jensen shrugs. “That’s always been my theory.” 

“Huh.” Jared mulls this over before apparently deciding it doesn’t much matter. He walks up a little further, past Jensen to the highest point of the hill. Jensen watches as Jared surveys the view, taking in the sight before him. He knows what Jared’s looking at: the vast fields dotted with houses, the elaborate nests of the dodos, the lazy flow of the river and the hint of castle turrets in the distance. Not for the last time, he wonders what Jared thinks of his home. 

And then he’s not thinking much about Wonderland at all, because Jared’s turning back with a toothy smile, hand out and beckoning. 

Jensen’s heart skips a beat for no reason when he takes it, letting himself be pulled up the hill and then tugged down to sit on the ground. He lets go because he’s fairly sure that’s what average social convention would call for, not because he particularly wants to. It feels nice to hold a hand, he decides. He amends this to _Jared’s_ hand, as surely his hand has been held before without so much notice on his part. Secretively, he wonders if there might be more hand-holding in their future and then scolds himself because really, he has no business thinking of hand-holding of any sort. For all intents and purposes they honestly just met and instead of daydreaming himself into some kind of crush, Jensen should probably consider the very real possibility that they’re completely incompatible. Sure, Jared’s tall and dorky and fiendishly attractive and sweet and such, but he might gnash his teeth. Jensen hates teeth gnashing. Or he might hate plum pie. Jensen’s not quite certain he could be friends with someone who hated plum pie. Or maybe he—

“You think a lot, don’t you?” 

Jensen blinks. “Um,” he says, and then casts his mind around for a believable lie. Then he sighs. “Yes.”

Jared punctuates his laugh with a shoulder check that nearly throws Jensen off balance. “You don’t have to, you know. Sometimes too much thinking’s bad for the soul. Gotta learn to just let things be.”

Jensen grins at that. “Like you and directionally confused rabbits?”

Another sharp laugh. “Exactly like that.”

There’s a bit more mindless chatter (Jensen learns Jared’s entire family is partial to bad CGI and unknown actors, Jared learns that Jensen bakes but never eats black raspberries) before they lapse into silence. Beyond the bug-squeaks, it’s a fairly quiet night that Jensen’s seen a million times before.

It’s a bit different, though, sharing it with someone else. The sights and sounds are the same, but it’s nice to nudge a shoulder to point out the sleeping swans or the way the river reeds glow. It’s nice to see a perpetual smile on Jared’s face. He’d never really thought of it before, but company has its benefits. 

Jensen lets himself relax, absently wondering how much longer Jared can stay. He’s only ever managed two to three hours at the most, which brings up an excellent question. 

“How do you go back?” Jensen has to ask again when Jared doesn’t even notice, tapping Jared’s shoulder with a light hand until he turns his head. “How do you leave Wonderland?”

Jared looks at him long enough to hear the question, then slowly turns his head back to the view. His hand wanders down to pluck at the grass, half-distracted. “You’ve seen,” he answers plainly. “I just disappear.”

“Well, yeah.” Jensen laughs a little at the obvious. “I’ve seen you disappear, dude. I’m just wondering how you decide when you want to leave.”

More grass ripping. “I don’t really have a choice.”

Jensen scrunches his eyebrows at that. “So there’s no rabbit hole?” Obviously, he’s never seen Jared fall into one in Wonderland, but perhaps it’s more of a personal thing. Maybe it’s something only Jared can see. Or, maybe it’s—Jensen swallows back a bit of trepidation. “Do you see a mirror?” 

Jared shakes his head, strangely silent. 

It’s a sign to let it be, but, “Nothing?” Jensen can’t help asking. “Sorry, I’m just—I’m just trying to understand how you get home.”

Strangely, a bit of awkwardness creeps into the conversation. Jensen can nearly see Jared’s mind work, clearly figuring out the best way to explain. He opens his mouth to say something several times, but ultimately bites back the words. Jensen’s ready to give up on the entire line of questioning – he’ll enjoy what he can get of Jared when he can get it and that will have to be that – when Jared clears his throat. 

“It’s just kind of hard to explain,” Jared sneaks a glance over to Jensen, flashing a rueful smile. “Sometimes it’s stress, I think?” He sounds honest but a bit timid, so Jensen nods his encouragement. He can understand why it’s hard to talk about. “So, you know. With this morning and all, I guess I just wasn’t prepared. I freaked out and I know that sped things along. 

But even when I’m not stressed, I don’t have a choice.” He pauses like he’s willing Jensen to understand. “It’s like it’s completely out of my control. One minute I’m fine and the next I’m in two places at once. I blink and I see you and the kitchen and I can smell whatever you’ve just baked but I can also see wherever it is I am back home. And then it’s like I have to make a decision, so I just…” He trails off, leaving the obvious words unsaid. 

“You can decide, though, right?” Jensen latches onto the most important thing. “I mean I know you said you don’t have a choice when you get the freaky double vision thing, but you decide where you want to stay?” He can’t help it: excitement and hope speeds up his words. 

It gets a laugh out of Jared, but his smile’s a bit sad. “I can and I can’t. I’ve never decided not to go home when I have the option. I dunno. I guess I’m just scared if I pass up the opportunity, I might not ever get another one.”

 _And what would be so bad about that_ , Jensen wants to say, but he knows it’s mostly spiteful and unfair. So he nods instead, letting the conversation die off into the night.


	2. Chapter 2

“I feel like this is a dangerous plan.” 

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“That is what I like to call a false statement. A statement in which none of the words are true and are therefore false. _Jared_ ,” Jensen nearly squeaks when Jared picks up the cake, only just stopping himself from smacking it out of his hands. He squeezes his own hands into fists at his sides, but can’t stop his nervous shuffle from one end of the kitchen to the other. “I have a really strong feeling about this. My strong feeling is telling me that we need to abandon this plan.”

Jared doesn’t even bother to look up from cutting the cake. “Stop worrying.”

“There’s a park, did I tell you?” Jensen stops pacing long enough to stammer out a bit of word vomit. “There’s a very nice park by the Inn and there are swings and a see-saw and wouldn’t that be more fun? Who doesn’t like to swing? I like to swing. I think we should swing instead, maybe even sit on a bench.”

“Jensen.”

“Bench-sitting is underrated.”

“ _Jensen_ ,” Jared laughs, somehow already standing in front of Jensen with four pieces of cake: two of them bite-sized and two of them nothing more than distinctive crumbs. “You said it yourself: we can’t get hurt.” 

Jensen’s eyes are now glued to the cake. “That was a boldfaced lie.”

“It’s not a lie.” Jared manages to choke off his laughter when Jensen narrows his eyes, but just barely. He sets down the plate with its offending cake pieces on the table, never looking away from Jensen’s face. Then he grabs Jensen’s shoulders, leaning in close in what he likely thinks is a supportive and confidence-inducing stance. “We’re going to be fine.”

“But—”

“Dude, you can’t tell me about cake that shrinks you to the size of a pin without expecting me to try it out.”

“Yes, I can!” Jensen says wildly. “I can say that without expecting you to want to _put it in your mouth_.”

Jared waves him off. “You said you’ve done it yourself.”

“I have,” Jensen allows, wondering how speedy Jared is versus his chances of tossing the cake out the window without being caught. “But that doesn’t mean I’m eager to repeat it.”

Jared rolls his eyes, turning away to the table again. Jensen slumps, cunning plan already failed. “You were young and naïve and without a spectacular friend to share the experience.”

“It was traumatizing,” Jensen mumbles, stubborn. He frowns as Jared comes back with the cake again and in a childish show of defiance, crosses his arms. 

Jared stops. “You know you’re less intimidating than my sister’s labradoodle when you do that, right?”

Jensen is momentarily distracted. “What the fuck is a labradoodle?”

“Immaterial. Look,” Jared steps even closer, smile big and bright and damnably blinding. “It’s going to be fine. We’ll take a bite of this amazing cake, we’ll shrink and explore in the safety of this very fine cottage, and then we’ll be done, alright? We’ll have a spectacular adventure.”

“Where is the Jared of a few weeks ago?” Jensen wonders out loud. “The one who was scared of butterflies and singing flowers. I miss that Jared. I miss his sensibility.” 

“Dead and gone, my friend,” Jared sing-songs, and Jensen wants to wail, as this entire situation is starting to look more and more dire. 

Jensen’s heart trip-trips in his chest as Jared studies him, especially because he doesn’t recognize the look in Jared’s eye when his lip quirks up a bit. Jensen’s not sure what such a look promises, but he can’t stop watching as Jared seems to make up his mind, setting down a tea saucer with the two crumbs on the floor before reaching for one of the cakes. With a final, wicked smile, he pops the piece into his mouth and starts chewing. 

“Jared!” As adamantly as he’d been protesting, Jensen hopes that Jared knows he wouldn’t let him go alone. Which, clearly, was evil Jared’s plan all along. “Wait!” 

But there really can’t be any waiting, as Jared’s already shrinking, his clothes magically following suit. His laughter fades as his lungs squeeze down to nearly nothing at all, but his smile is bright no matter the size. Jensen makes a growling sound as he rushes over to the table, swallowing back a bite full of the cake before he can stop himself. Shrinking, he absently congratulates himself on the taste. 

\--

“You’re a cruel and evil friend and I hate you.”

“Now _that_ is a false statement,” Jared disagrees happily, not even bothering to look at Jensen’s face. He’s too busy straining his neck, looking up at the endlessly tall legs of the kitchen table. 

It irks Jensen that Jared is not paying attention to his scowl. Without a mirror he can only guess, but he’s fairly sure it’s impressive. His face is starting to hurt from keeping it up. “We’re _tiny_ ,” he bemoans, just because. 

“We are!” Jared cries happily, and starts off in the direction of the couch. “Dude,” he says, after a moment, “You need to dust.”

“I don’t,” Jensen says back, unbelieving, because he’s downright faithful to his mopping routine. His floor shines like a goddamn mirror when he’s finished with it, so how could there be dust? 

Apparently there is dust. 

He trots after Jared, who is in the process of examining a frightfully huge dust bunny under Jensen’s couch. He’s not sure why, but Jensen’s almost embarrassed enough to blush because he’s managed to maintain the appearance of a fairly well-kept household up until this disastrous moment and surely Jared doesn’t mind but what if he _does_ mind, a bit like Jensen would mind if Jared refused to eat some of his pie. This could be horribly damning to Jensen’s hand-holding quest. 

“Okay,” Jared breaks into Jensen’s thoughts, “Whatever you’re worrying about, you need to know I don’t really care about the dust.”

Jensen’s eyes go wide. “How did you know?”

And suddenly Jared’s there, a bit like a ninja in the way that he zipped from one place to another. “Because you bite your lip when you worry. I’m half convinced that’s how it got so huge in the first place,” he says, and smiles a little at his own awful joke. 

Jensen rolls his eyes. He could say something snarky in return, but he’s a little too pleased that Jared’s next to him again. It would be a shame to scare him away, so he shuts his mouth instead and then he nods indulgently as Jared points out how huge everything is, wandering around Jensen’s house like a small child at a particularly fantastic amusement park. 

And Jensen supposes it is interesting, when he’s not battling flashbacks from his youth. Yes, he manages to agree with Jared, it _is_ quite a different view, and yes, he has _has_ seen Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and no, he’s not keen on attempting to befriend an ant. He’s still a bit leery of the whole experience, but Jared’s enthusiasm is rather infectious and Jensen ends up relaxing more than he’d expected. He soaks up Jared’s company while he can, already dreading how quiet his cottage will be when he disappears. 

Jared talks as they walk in an obvious ploy to keep Jensen from darting back and grabbing the crumbs they need in order to grow again. It mostly works. Jensen enjoys watching Jared hop around from one thing to the next too much to waste time worrying about dying as a very, very small man. 

Climbing around on a fallen petal from one of Jensen’s plants, Jared calls down, “So how’d you find Wonderland, anyway?”

Jensen stiffens, always at least somewhat uncomfortable with the subject. He busies himself with buffing out an invisible scratch on his couch leg. “I was out with my brother in the garden,” he says slowly, and the memory is clearer than anything. “Then I saw a white rabbit.”

Jared peers down at him, higher up on the petal than Jensen would like. His grin is brilliant, all boyish. “Was he lost?”

“A _white_ rabbit,” Jensen reminds, moving closer to run his fingers over the smoothness of the petal, thoughtful. “So no, not lost. Just very, very late.”

“Ah,” Jared appears to consider this. “Broken watch?”

“Absentmindedness,” Jensen says, and shrugs, because it’s only a theory. 

Jared hums his response, then slides down the petal in one smooth and quick motion that makes Jensen narrow his eyes. Refusing to remind himself of his mother, Jensen bites his lip before he can snap out a _careful_ , but he’s pretty sure Jared sees it in his face anyway. 

“And then what?” Jared asks as they walk toward a spare set of Jensen’s boots, crushing Jensen’s hope that the conversation had died. 

Jensen sighs. “There’s not much to say, really. I followed him and fell down a rabbit hole. Cue the beginning of a very strange day.”

That makes Jared laugh. “I can only imagine,” he says, and then he’s eyeing the ladder of the boot laces like he means to climb them, but he turns to Jensen instead. “But you, uh,” he starts, suddenly tentative, “You went back home, right?”

A hot, unpleasant feeling settles in Jensen’s stomach. “This is my home,” he says quickly, and wishes they’d brought the crumbs with them. He suddenly itches to be bigger. 

There’s a small crease between Jared’s eyebrows now. “Okay,” he says slowly, his tone careful and measured. “Your family, then. You followed a rabbit, you fell down a hole, you had an odd day, and then you went back to your family, right?”

“I did,” Jensen says stiffly, and because an anger is swelling in his head, snaps, “What’s with all the questioning?”

Jared looks a little taken aback, but he recovers quickly, shrugging and moving closer to the boot like he intends to inspect it. “Just trying to understand why you’re still here, is all. You went back to them, fine, but you obviously didn’t choose to stay.” He tries to say it absently and without much care, but Jensen picks up something else. Something sly and perhaps slightly intrusive.

“Why do you care so much?” Jensen has to ask. 

Jared straightens up, still somehow managing to look tall. “Well, I mean. I care about you.” He shrugs and looks a bit confused, like this is something Jensen should already have known and processed. “And in caring about you, I kinda also care about your life, man. I’m just trying to put the pieces together.”

It’s said so honestly and shamelessly that Jensen has to blink, some of his ire immediately melting away. “Oh,” is all he can really manage, because his brain is somewhat stuck on Jared’s words. 

“So, yeah,” Jared fills up the silence, slapping at the shoe before moving away. “Tell me or don’t tell me, it’s up to you. I’m just saying that if you’d like to share, I’d like to listen. That’s all.”

“You’re curious,” Jensen corrects. 

Jared smiles, a little rueful. “I’m curious.”

Jensen nods, most of the anger gone and buried again. He doesn’t know _why_ he’s so reluctant to share. Something to do with dragging out the memories again and remembering. Poking at what’s painful. “I know,” he says mildly. “And I’ll tell you, I—just. Not now.” It’s nearly said on a whim, but he’ll follow through. He’d just rather think of other things, at the moment. 

Like all that caring business. 

He wants to blurt out the same thing ( _I care about you too even though your feet kind of smell and you hiccup when you nap and I haven’t known you for long but I think I might have been waiting for you for a long, long time and I like it when you’re around and I care_ ) but he feels as if they’ve met their quota for awkward and disastrous conversations for the day. 

So they move on, Jensen grabbing at Jared’s shirt to pull him away from climbing into a cupboard and consequently, certain death. The conversation fades back into more familiar things, like the movies Jared’s been seeing and how he wants to adopt a dog from the shelter down the street. 

There’s a brief but terrifying moment when a bird taps his beak on the window above the sink, which immediately serves to rekindle all of Jensen’s nervousness about the stupidity of being small. The click of its beak against glass is like a thunder booming across the cavern of the cottage and all Jensen can think about is how he’d make a very tasty lunch. 

He grips Jared’s hand without thinking about it, tugging on his arm and attempting to drag them toward the crumbs. “Eating the cake,” he huffs, as Jared weighs an ungodly amount. “We’re eating the cake.” 

When he bothers to turn his head to look, Jared’s smiling a little, but he’s not protesting. He’s seemed to accept his fate, although he’s not bothering to fully cooperate, letting Jensen do most of the work. 

It’s not until Jensen practically force-feeds Jared his bit of cake that he feels safe enough to swallow his own. He wouldn’t put it past Jared to wait until Jensen grew before tossing the cake aside entirely for a fun-filled day of being Mini Jared, so he sighs in relief when they’re back to normal. 

“Thank fuck,” he has to say, because he’s big and his hands and feet and dick are all in their usual places in their usual sizes. 

“Can we do it again?” Jared asks, and when Jensen starts to laugh a bit hysterically, adds, “I’m only slightly kidding.”

Jensen laughs his way to the cupboard, hands already grabbing for a pie. “You’re out of your fucking mind,” he says, and hopes Jared’s ready for some cherry. 

\--

The market is loud and bustling, overflowing with people and playing card soldiers and various furrier creatures all looking to find what they need. Jensen never bothers to set up a booth, but he does have a few deliveries to hand out to various vendors; Jared follows him as Jensen weaves through the crowd, emptying his basket as he goes. 

It’s a sunny late morning, the sky only spotted with bleach-white clouds. When the wind blows, it carries a hint of lavender from a nearby field and Jensen breathes it in as if he’ll never again have the chance. As noisy as the market is, it’s an arguably peaceful place: there’s not much in the way of vicious bartering or angry shoppers, just friendly how-are-you’s and the exchanging of goods. 

Jared’s eyes grow a little more mournful with every pan of pie and plate of cake he watches Jensen pass away. “I’m jealous of that woman’s dessert,” he says unhappily, once they’re out of earshot. “I, too, would enjoy eating such a pie.”

Jensen smiles a pleased smile as he side-steps one of the Mad Hatter’s burly sons. He keeps moving forward as he says, “I know you would.”

“I’m just not sure she’ll appreciate that pie like it needs to be appreciated, is all.”

“And _that_ only sounds mildly inappropriate,” Jensen returns, and then spares a moment to arch an eyebrow back at Jared, who’s having a bit harder of a time trying to successful push through the throng. “What exactly are you doing to my pies in private?”

Jared waves the question away with a flick of his hand. “We have a special relationship, your pies and I. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh?” Jensen tries to deadpan.

“I’m afraid not.” They’re finally near the edges of the market; it’s suddenly a bit easier to hear Jared’s voice and overdramatic sigh. “There’s no use in trying to explain.”

Jensen can’t help it: he breaks out in laughter that instantly makes Jared smile. “Well,” he says, calming down, “I suppose you should thank me in advance, then, for indulging you in your not so secret love.” And adds, when Jared looks confused: “I brought an extra slice for lunch.” 

That, of course, is enough to make Jared bound forward, trapping Jensen in a mighty hug. “I knew there was a reason I kept coming to visit,” he says when he pulls back, smile big and fond and capable of making Jensen’s heart flip. Jared gives another shoulder pat before stepping to Jensen’s side, “Now lead the way to lunch.”

Lunch, as Jensen had decided earlier, would be at the park. He’d planned the day in bed, not knowing if Jared would actually be visiting, but deciding the details with the hope that he might. Jared’s visits are nearly daily now, but there are the occasional patches when he can’t find the time. The three day stretch Jared used to move into a new apartment were harder to stand than Jensen had imagined, even though he most certainly did not pine. At all. 

So other than the brief bits of absence, Jared’s nearly a constant fixture. His visits are typically always limited to half days, but they make the most of it. When he’s not smacking Jared’s hands away from the cake batter, Jensen manages to teach a few things. Jared’s definitely not the most competent cook in the world, but he can follow instructions. They’ve explored beyond the safety of Jensen’s home, going further and further away to spy on the caterpillars, tour the castle, and swim in the sea. Jensen forgets how he used to spend his days; when he’s not with Jared, he’s planning on what to do (and what he wishes he could do) with Jared. Jensen refuses to analyze this too closely, of course, as he suspects it reeks of ridiculous behavior. 

It stings less and less when Jared brings up his home and family. Jensen still can’t manage to shake a bit of jealousy, though, as his time with Jared is so limited. Just once, he’d like Jared to spend the night, to wake up with him close and warm. 

Mostly, he keeps these thoughts to himself. 

It’s hard, though, especially when they’re like this: Jared stooping down to greet a flower as Jensen sets out the blanket in the park, when they sit down together and Jared absolutely insists on eating dessert first. 

“Unf,” he moans, throwing his head back for emphasis. “I don’t know how you do it, man.”

“Magic,” Jensen smirks, and has to tear his eyes away from the tan leanness of Jared’s neck. “I’m just a very talented individual.”

“Heh.” A piece of the pie escapes Jared’s mouth with the sound, so he wipes at his face, completely unrepentant. “Could you cook this well back home?” Jared asks, and then catches himself. He winces, face falling, like he’s just spilled a particularly hurtful secret. “I’m sor—”

“No, it’s—” Jensen cuts him off. “It’s fine,” he says, and rearranges himself on the blanket, smoothing out the bumps for no reason at all. And then he shrugs, letting himself consider the question. “I’m not sure, really. I left before I ever bothered to make things in the kitchen.” 

Jared starts to open his mouth again, but reaches for the napkin instead. He looks up at Jensen through his eyelashes as he spends far too much time cleaning his hands. “When did you leave?” he asks, neutral. 

Jensen lets his mind reach back. “I was 15.”

A little noise of shock escapes Jared. He leans forward, obviously disbelieving. “You’ve been living here on your own since you were 15?”

“Well, I mean,” Jensen pauses, wondering why it’s so fucking strange to talk about this. “I lived with Misha.”

“Misha?” 

“A friend,” Jensen says, and has to smile. Misha’s sent a few parcels from the mountains, various birds dropping off bottles of wine and spices as they pass through the area. The attached notes are always cheerful, full of spelling mistakes but perfect grammar. He’d like Jared to meet him. “I lived with him and his family until I was old enough to find a place of my own.” 

Jared nods, taking this all in. His eyes dart to Jensen’s face, assessing, before he starts drumming on his own legs with his fingertips. Jensen braces himself for a question. 

“I know—I know you don’t like talking about this. I know it makes you uncomfortable. But, why?” Jared turns to look at him, squinting a bit as the wind picks up. 

“Why did I leave my family?” 

Jared nods. 

Playing with his own hands now, Jensen sucks in a breath, letting it out as he shrugs his shoulders. “They thought I was insane,” he says, and doesn’t have enough courage to look Jared in the eye. All sorts of feelings buzz beneath his skin as he stumbles through the words. “I was seven when I went to Wonderland the first time. I came home and never meant to say a word. _Didn’t_ say a word until I was ten.” 

“What happened then?” Jared prompts. 

“Nothing much, at first.” It’s getting harder to push through the memories. His voice feels thicker, even as he tries to sound unaffected. “I was a kid, you know? Kids have imaginations. No one thought it was that strange.” He rubs at a piece of dirt on his thumb. “But then they started noticing how often I was gone, I guess.”

“Gone?”

“Sleeping,” Jensen amends, then forces himself to give a sharp laugh. “Kinda worrisome when your kid sleeps all night and most of the day for no apparent reason. I know you can get away with it, night classes and all.” Jared’s been working on some kind of a degree at a graduate school. He explained it once when they were swimming, but Jensen was far too distracted with a certain view. Something about consulting, something about science. “But I had school, you know? I can’t even tell you how many days I missed. First because I slept and then because of all the tests.”

“They thought you were sick,” Jared works out, eyes scrunched and caring. 

Jensen nods. “They did,” he allows, and realizes his mood has been steadily decreasing as he speaks. He feels heavier now, full of old hatred and disgust. “Can’t tell you how many tests. All inconclusive, of course. I tried to stop coming here long enough to convince them I was better, but that never really worked.”

“Well,” Jared says, thoughtful, “It was probably a good escape, right? Better than being stuck as a hospital.”

Warm relief rushes through Jensen. “Yeah,” he nods, pleased that Jared seems to understand, at least partially. But if he’s honest with himself, there’s a bit more to it. He clears this throat. “There was a pull to coming, too. I mean,” he stumbles, “Of course being here was easier than being there, but sometimes it felt less like a freestanding option and more like a demand.” Jared squints a little at this, brain clearly picking apart Jensen’s words, trying to understand just what the hell he’s getting at. He looks a little concerned, truth be told, so Jensen hurries to set things right. “But that didn’t matter much. This is where I wanted to be, anyway,” he says, and hopes he’s conveying the right level of honesty, because it’s true. 

Jared lets things stew in the air for several heartbeats, the words left hanging in the relative silence of the park. The one, lone child and his mother are busy swinging on the far side near the trees, neither of them making enough noise to counteract the quiet. Then, in a quick rush of motion, Jared takes both of his hands to his hair, messing it up with rough shakes. Perhaps it’s supposed to convey looseness, but Jensen can see the concentration on Jared’s face, like he’s really working through what’s been said. It makes Jensen squirm, a little. 

A quick cough before Jared shifts a bit more on the blanket, angling his body so it’s nearly the only thing Jensen can see. “Where are you, right now?”

Jensen blinks, stopping himself from answering with the very obvious. 

His confusion must show, because Jared shifts closer still, eyes searching for something unnamable in Jensen’s own. “Outside of Wonderland. Where are you outside of Wonderland? Right now.” 

Jensen’s mind jumps forward, his voice rising with the panic that comes with his guess. “Please don’t try to find me. Don’t—don’t try to do that.” He couldn’t, he just _can’t_ let Jared see him outside of Wonderland. He’s nothing, back there. A shell. “There wouldn’t be a point,” he manages to say, forcing himself to sound a bit calmer. 

“I won’t,” Jared says, voice strangely weighted and sad. “I won’t try to find you, I just wondered if you remembered. Where you were,” he clarifies. 

Unwillingly, Jensen thinks back to his last memory of that other place: the nurses and the sullen doctors with their needles and their pills that infested his brain and made his skin crawl without end. He can remember the old panic in his throat, the way it swelled shut, the sudden weight of misery bearing down on his chest until he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t function beyond the things necessary to survive. He remembers his mother’s crying, his father’s disappointed stare, and his fingers unconsciously clutch at the grass in Wonderland, a kind of anchor that he suddenly needs. 

“A hospital,” he manages to say, and his eyes shut on their own accord. “I’m in a hospital.” 

“All right,” Jared scoots even closer, calming but also a bit apprehensive. 

Jensen laughs, a little miserable. “Sorry,” he says. “I really thought it wouldn’t matter, saying all this shit.” He didn’t expect it to be so painful, but he takes a deep breath, ready to finish what he started. “When they couldn’t find a reason for the sleep, I went to a psychiatrist. My mother mentioned Wonderland and that was all it took. I told them the truth and here I am.”

“That must have been terrifying,” Jared says quietly, and then elaborates. “The tests and the doctors and all that.”

“Yeah,” Jensen stops to rub at the back of his neck, muscles tight. He’s sick of this conversation. He’s sick of wasting time remembering a past that’s completely irrelevant, so he tries to wrap it up. “Five years of that shit. Hospitals and every fucking medication you can think of, all of them useless. I was tired of it, so yeah.” He stops to gesture around at the park, the full trees and the play sets. “Decided why bother? Not like I was leaving much of a life behind.”

That makes Jared frown. “What about your friends? Don’t you miss your family?”

Jensen snorts, leaning over to grab Jared’s plate so he can put it away. “What friends? You think any 10 year old would have stuck with me through that?” He shakes his own head, strangely uncaring about that fact. “I don’t blame them. I would have done the same thing.”

Still frowning. “Your family?”

“My family locked me up in the psych ward,” Jensen says coldly, and really, that’s all that’s left to say. “So,” he starts, peppering his words with false cheer. He points to the playground, intent on escaping the conversation. “You man enough to go on the roundabout?”

Jared waits before answering, letting Jensen know he’s aware of what he’s trying to do, before he nods. “You know it,” he says, a bit quieter than before. 

Jensen stands up, ready to move forward, but Jared suddenly looks so sullen that he aches a bit with the sight. He’s not sure what he can say to make it right, but he searches his mind, regardless. “I chose the right reality,” he says firmly, and Jared’s head snaps up, eyes locking. “I don’t know how the fuck I found Wonderland or if Wonderland found me, but it doesn’t matter. I’m where I belong, okay?”

If his frown is anything to judge by, Jared doesn’t seem to agree. “Jen—”

“Okay?” Jensen says, a bit more forceful than he means to. 

Jared sighs. “Okay,” he says, what he really wants to say lingering under the surface. But he swallows it down, finally bothering to get up off the ground. 

Jensen ignores it all in favor of running as far away from the conversation as he can. “Good,” he grins, a bit forcefully. “Now let’s spin until we’re dizzy enough to puke.” Grabbing Jared’s hand, he jumps headfirst back into the rest of their day.

\--

It’s downright unholy, how Jared looks in the water. 

When he suspects Jared isn’t paying attention, Jensen lets his eyes roam over the pearls of water on his back, the breadth of his shoulders and the muscles underneath. It’s definitely a sight he can appreciate, and he hopes he’s not imagining the same kind of looks thrown in his direction. 

Caught in a daydream involving chocolate sauce, sugar, and multiple sheet changes, he doesn’t hear Jared’s voice until his hands are on Jensen’s shoulders, dunking him under the water. 

Sputtering, Jensen reemerges, a bit of seaweed stuck in his hair drapes down to tickle his nose. He picks it out and tosses it at Jared, attempting to summon up some non-existent ire. “Foul play.”

“Otherwise known as the _best_ kind of play,” Jared returns happily. His smile is brighter than the sun, and his words are light and playful. It’s exactly what Jensen had hoped to see when he suggested a trip to the sea. 

“This may possibly be true,” Jensen allows, and then turns his head when he hears the gossipy echoes of the oysters. He’s sure half of Wonderland will know about his afternoon with Jared by the end of the night. In his experience, oysters are inherently chatty and rather jealous of most walking things, but one of them had very sweetly offered Jared a pearl when they’d arrived. It’s somewhere on the shore, tucked into a shoe. 

“So, I beat my high school on Nazi Zombies,” Jared says out of nowhere. He’s still splashing around, more like a five year old than a 20-something graduate student. “Level _fifteen_. All by myself.” 

“That that’s your highest score is kind of saddening, dude,” Jensen says, but it’s more for show than anything else. He’s heard Jared talk about his Xbox and he gets the concept, but he’s rather out of touch with technology. He hasn’t played a video game in years, and for the first time it kind of stings. 

“I’m a goddamn genius.” Jared chooses to ignore him. “I’d beat you, too, if you ever came back to play.” He says it absently; Jensen can tell by the way his posture never changes, still loose and calm in the water. 

“Mm.” It’s as good of a non-answer as Jensen can give. Unconsciously or not, Jared has been slipping up in the same way all week, inviting Jensen to movies he’ll never be able to see or talking about trucks he’ll never get to drive. He can’t tell if it’s deliberate. 

Best just to change the subject. “How’s your family?”

“Meh,” Jared’s too busy examining some kind of pebble to give the question much thought. He turns it over his fingers, playing with it in the light. “They’re fine. God, I’m stuffed, though. Back home,” he adds, like he needs to clarify. In a very strange turn of events, he had actually turned down Jensen’s offer of food when he’d arrived. “My dad made this lasagna, you know? Fucking delicious. He had Meg drop it off at my apartment and I ate the entire thing. The _entire thing_.” 

Jensen knows the only reason Jared sounds sad is because he won’t have any leftovers. “No regrets, right?”

A grin pops up on Jared’s face. “Yeah, man. No regrets.” 

They stay in the water for another hour or so, long enough that Jensen feels like he has prunes instead of toes, and then he makes his way to the shore. The towels he’d remembered to bring are enormous and obscenely fluffy, and he plops down next to Jared, pleasantly exhausted. 

He closes his eyes against the sun, sighing and relaxing and generally feeling quite content. The wind blows against his wet skin, cooling it enough that the heat of Jared’s body next to his own is distinct. Jensen knows without looking that their fingers are close, the tips barely touching, and he allows himself a moment to dream about reaching over and grabbing them with his own. 

And then he doesn’t have to dream, because Jared’s fingers – still damp and swollen from the water – wrap around his own. 

Jensen’s eyes fly open, but he manages not to lurch up from his position. Blinking up at the sky for a moment doesn’t really help, because the fingers are still there and they’re still gripping his own and he has to, he just has to look. He attempts to turn his head with James Bond levels of sneakiness, but he’s sure Jared can tell: the corners of his lips are upturned, even as his eyes are closed against the sky. 

Still confused, a surge of something buoyant fills up the spaces of Jensen’s heart. A smile blooms on his face before he can temper it down—a giddy, school boy smile because Jared hasn’t moved, his grip hasn’t faltered, this isn’t a mistake, and it’s enough that his breath catches in his chest. 

“Okay?” 

Jensen looks over to see Jared’s open eyes, small and slightly slanted and perhaps a bit hesitant. 

He squeezes back instead of answering, blind to everything else but the feel of it, and closes his eyes. This is the beginning of a beautiful day.

\--

Jensen has been plotting. 

He’s been plotting since the day at the beach, planning out details and nixing them, all in a single thought. He thinks about it in the shower, as he buys flour, as he chats with Florence on his morning walk. First kisses require special attention, after all, and part of Jensen worries that no matter how much he plans, he’ll be out of practice.

There was the fling with one of the Mad Hatter’s less brawny sons. Gaston was lovely and fond of Jensen’s peppermint cookies, but he kissed a bit like a spin cycle on a washing machine. Such tongue action was not entirely unwelcome in other areas, but it was a bit saddening to have to dread something more traditional. Oscar was a fabulous kisser, but he traveled too much to be anything more than an _occasionally_ fabulous kisser. And Harold was sweet, but he was also a bit too fond of the caterpillars' weed.

So he plans. He refuses to listen to the part of his mind that says it's a bad idea ( _how could he want you, how could he want_ this) and lets his heart flutter as he thinks about location and time and, embarrassingly, what he should wear. Apparently, he has morphed into some younger, incredibly girlish version of himself, as these thoughts plague him until the minute Jared reappears in his kitchen. And then it doesn't much matter anyway -- all the planning's thrown out the window when Jared smiles at him and suggests they go on a walk.

They pass a family of dodos, all of them chattering happily about the weather, on their way to wherever it is they'll end up. Jensen lets Jared lead, content to follow his steps until they stop at the edge of the Very Dark Forest, which is quite a lovely place, despite the name. It smells of white tea and dewy earth, and sitting on a fresh patch of grass offers a spectacular view of the distant fields.

There hasn't been any hand-holding since the day on the beach, but Jensen's convinced that's immaterial. He ignores the way Jared keeps fiddling with a frayed thread on his jeans and lets his excitement turn off his brain because this—this moment—is exactly what he wanted all along.

He shifts closer to Jared, strangely unembarrassed about his forwardness, and grips his hand.

Jared turns to look at him, clearly shocked out of whatever he'd been thinking, and Jensen hones in on the shape of his lips, already imagining what they'll feel like under his own. Jared gives a little sputter, eyes wide, as Jensen moves closer, heart pounding because _this is it_ , fuck the consequences. He wants to kiss Jared and he will.

He can tell Jared was at least a bit unprepared by the way he feels a trapped, muffled noise against their lips. Something worrying tugs at his brain at the sound, but he pushes bravely forward, pulling in Jared's bottom lip and biting it gently, willing him to kiss back.

"Jensen," Jared pulls away, pained, and Jensen opens his eyes without knowing they'd closed. He stares back at Jared, first stunned to silence before shame and embarrassment tug him away, feet slipping in the grass as he stands up too quickly to keep his balance.

Jared follows his movements, face creased and miserable, but he doesn't try to touch him. He doesn't reach for Jensen's hand, doesn't attempt to erase the past few seconds.

Heart beating out of control, Jensen covers his reddening face with hands for an instant before he has to grip at his own arms. He turns his face to the view, to the rolling plains and the various animals and people dotting the landscape, before he can find his voice. "I'm sorry," he says, and feels like the most foolish person in the world, "I'm so sorry, I thought—"

"Stop," Jared's face creases further when he steps closer, finally following him. "Jensen, it's—" He pauses, muttering a curse under his breath. "It's not because I don't want to."

Jensen has to blink at this new information. He feels lost, like he's skipped a page at the climax of a story. He’s still struggling to tamper down his emotions, the weight of them combined manifesting in his shaky hands and legs. “I don’t—” he starts, and finds he can’t continue. 

“Could you just—?” Jared looks helpless, which helps and infuriates Jensen in equal measure. “Could you sit down?”

Surprisingly, Jensen does. 

Jared follows him down, bending his knees and settling back on the grass slowly, like every movement is a conscious effort. He looks at Jensen like he expects him to run, then bites his lip, hands reaching up to rub at his face. “I haven’t been completely honest with you,” he murmurs, and Jensen nearly misses the words as they’re said. 

Rejection is still burning bright in his veins, but Jensen manages to find a bit of extra confusion. “About what?” he makes himself say, but from the way Jared can only sneak glances at him before staring at his hands, the grass, or the distance beyond tells Jensen he won’t like what he hears. 

“Please don’t hate me,” Jared says, begging, sounding like a child he really isn’t. 

Jensen promises nothing of the sort. 

When he can see he’s not going to get a verbal response, Jared nods like it’s to be expected. He clears his throat, but it does little to banish the tremors when he speaks. “Do you remember what I said I did? For a living?”

Jensen blinks at him, casting his mind back. “You’re a student,” he says, and wonders what that has to do with absolutely anything at all. 

Jared swallows thickly, nodding slowly. “I am,” he allows, and Jensen can see the shift in Jared’s body language as he prepares to continue. He deflates, shoulders drooping down with a new weight. “But I’m also part of an experimental program.”

“An experimental program.” Jensen repeats, cold. 

Jared winces. “I know how it sounds,” he says, “but it’s the truth. I’ve been working with my uncle, uh. Tom Reinert?” He pauses, but from Jensen’s blank face he must know to continue. “He’s famous for pioneering a kind of technology that lets people explore the subconscious human mind.” 

“What the fuck does this have to do with anything?” Jensen says, voice suddenly hard, because he may still be lost, but he’s getting an inkling of where this is going and it’s something he doesn’t even want to consider. Something that stinks of betrayal. 

It’s obvious that Jared wants to shut up, that he wants to take it all back. Jensen would let him, he thinks, if it meant that this weight on his chest would disappear. 

The words tumble out of Jared’s mouth. “He called me when I graduated college, asked if I could be interested in joining his program. It’s—we heal people, Jensen. We’ve been working in the hospital for months now, helping anyone we can.”

Jensen finds himself breathing harder, mind spinning, fists clenching.

Jared either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. He continues on, voice full of defeat. “I’d been working with coma patients for months,” he says sadly. “I managed to save a few. Enough that they decided to let me pick my next patient.” _Patient_ , Jensen mouths silently, and feels something inside him break. Jared’s not looking at him, but he winces after he says it, anyway. “My last patient had the room across from yours. You were moved from psych when you stopped responding to any kind of treatment. Your mother was there, visiting you, and I—”

“Is that how you knew?” Jensen bites out, a swell of emotions he can’t even name clogging his throat. “About the white rabbit? Is that how you knew how to lie?”

Bravely, Jared manages to look Jensen in the eye. “Yes,” he says, so quiet. 

Jensen nods for no real reason at all, panic and hurt and betrayal and confusion all taking turns slamming him in the guts, rearranging his insides. There’s no use sorting through them, no use attempting to feel anything other than lost in his own head. Then there’s a hand on his shoulder – Jared’s hand – and he shrugs it off, stepping further away. “I can’t—,” he starts, and realizes there’s too many ways to finish the sentence. So he’s left with his biggest question. “Why?” 

“I wanted to help you,” Jared says, and his whole body screams that it’s the truth. 

“How?” Jensen spits.

Jared’s hands clutch at the air by his sides, looking for something to hold on to. He swallows, but his voice is firmer. More decided. “By bringing you back to reality.” 

“This is reality,” Jensen grits out, voice dangerous and low. 

Jared shakes his head sadly. “It’s not,” he murmurs, and there’s conviction in his words, even if it pains him to say it. “It’s never been real.”

“It’s _always_ been real,” Jensen gets out, and some functioning part of his brain tells him that he’s panting, hands and arms and legs all shaking. A small cry escapes his throat. “You’re just like the rest of them.” 

Jared looks pained, keeps attempting to step closer despite Jensen’s unwillingness to let him near. “I’m not.”

“You are,” Jensen says, voice breaking. And then another thought hits him, slamming him with another wave of betrayal and hatred. “Was any of it real?” Jared’s already concerned face twists up a little in confusion. Jensen pushes it aside, not caring to elaborate. He bites out a bitter laugh. “I can’t believe I thought you cared about me.”

Jared’s face crumples. “Jensen, I do,” he says quickly. Earnestly. Although Jensen refuses to hear it. “None of that was a lie, not a single second.”

Jensen wants to believe him. He desperately wants to believe him, but if even if it were true, there’s still the matter of intent. Jared had come to _steal him away_ and Jensen’s so furious he can hardly stand. 

Somehow, Jared interprets Jensen’s motionless as a cue to talk. “Come back with me,” he pleads. “That’s all it’d take. Knowing what I’ve told you, all you have to do is come back. Just—”

“Leave.” Jensen’s not sure how he manages to say it, but he does. 

Jared immediately goes quiet. “Jen—”

“ _Leave_ ,” Jensen roars, and he doesn’t give a shit if Jared can’t. He leaves his order hanging in the air before he turns away, running down the hill.


	3. Chapter 3

"Are you sure you need another?"

Jensen looks up, bleary-eyed. He nearly forgot he demanded another beer. Misha's sitting across the nicked table, leaning forward to be heard over the noise of the Inn's bar. Obviously, the unsaid end to his question is _because I really think you don't_ , but at least he gives Jensen the illusion of a choice. 

"Meh," Jensen gets out, and considers saying yes just because. The table's swimming a bit and he's really no longer focused enough to pick out distinct voices in the crowd, but there's something to be said for the blissful stupidity alcohol provides. "Imma think about it." 

That seems to mollify Misha a bit, who leans back in his chair, uncharacteristically silent. 

When minutes pass and nothing's said and Jensen is absently starting to wonder if he managed to spill beer on his shirt or if it's just abnormally hot, Misha clears his throat. 

"The wine was great in the mountains, by the way."

Jensen grunts out an affirmative. He knows the wine was great. Misha poured a bit down his throat before Jensen insisted they came to the bar to finish what they started. He's fairly confident it won't taste as lovely coming up as it did going down, but that's neither here nor there. 

"The goat cheese was equally incredible," Misha adds.

The mix of foam and beer really looks quite interesting when he swishes it, Jensen decides. "That's nice," he remembers to say, and continues on his with experiment.

"Their dodos speak Chinese, did you know?"

"Mmm." Such lovely, interesting beer. 

"Good thing I fucked the high priest, or he never would have let me marry six of his daughters."

"Congratulations," Jensen mumbles, and then a little pinprick of a thought stops him from diving back into his beer study. "Um. Was that--?"

"A lie? Yeah, buddy. Lies and falsehoods." Misha's finished with his own beer and now proceeds to flip coasters on the edge of the table. He's up to seven, Jensen thinks, and he's impressed before he remembers Misha hasn't had nearly enough to drink. This seems both unfair and cruelly wise.

"Lies are bad," Jensen says firmly, and slams his beer down on the table a bit for emphasis. It sloshes up and out of the pint, splattering the table. "Lies are very, very bad." Helpfully, a kind internal voice points out that it's possible he's a bit drunk. He takes another gulp and when he opens his eyes, the world's spinning even more. But he decides that's immaterial. 

"Right," Misha deadpans, and then sighs. Jensen can see him look a bit mournfully at the group of travelers smoking what looks to be (from the way they keep petting each others' shirts and cackling uncontrollably) some incredibly fine weed, before he stares back at Jensen and Jensen's pint.

Jensen clutches his beer, possessive.

Misha rolls his eyes, then tips back in the chair. "Is this the part where I'm about supposed to offer advice about your boyfriend?"

"Yes," Jensen gets out, very factual. "This is the part where I bitch and you are required to be comforting. You agree with everything I say. Also, he wasn’t my boyfriend."

"You've been bitching all night," Misha points out, ignoring the rest.

Jensen hums and attempts to remember, but the night's events are already a bit foggy. He supposes this might be true, but he waves away Misha's words. “Care don’t.” Jensen blinks and tries again. “I don’t care.” 

“He lied to you, right?” Misha asks.

A bit of anger resurfaces at that, although it’s dulled a bit over the past week. “He did,” Jensen grits out. 

“About everything?” 

Jensen has to pause because, well. Not _everything_. Jared’s continued to pop in and out of Wonderland, always sitting at Jensen’s table without a word, like he’s waiting for permission. When he kept coming back despite Jensen’s rather impressive glares and hints, Jensen decided to let him be; Jared can sit at his table all he likes, but they’re not speaking. Jensen’s been very clear on that point. He’s hoping sooner or later Jared will get the message and disappear for good. 

Although from the way that thought makes him ache, Jensen’s not so sure what he wants. 

Back to Misha’s question. “Well. Before the, uh—”

“Banishment began?” Misha supplies.

“Yes,” Jensen figures that’s as good a word as any. “Banishment. He told me the only thing he lied about was his job.” 

“Do you believe that?” 

Jensen wants to say no more than anything. He wants this to be simple and clear-cut and he wants the last goodbye to be as painless as possible. But he can’t help the conviction that fills his head when he thinks about what Jared said. “I don’t think he was lying about anything else,” he says, albeit grudgingly. “But the lie was a big fucking lie.”

“Still, though,” Misha’s still tipping back and forth in his chair, balanced on the two back legs. He smiles at a pretty girl that passes, watching her walk to the bar when he says, “That has to make things a bit better.”

“ _How_?”

“Well,” Misha gives a little wave to the girl, half-distracted. “With the whole ‘he loves me, he loves me not’ business. At least you know that wasn’t bullshit.”

“But he’s trying to take me away,” Jensen presses, and attempts to muster up as much fierceness as he can. “He said none of this—” He stops to gesture at the bar, the patrons, and the plumes of smoke rising from pipes. “was real.” And then the worst, most hurtful thing of all. “He thinks I’m insane. Just like the rest of them.” 

Misha sighs. He gives up trying to attract the attention of the girl in favor of signaling to the barman to bring them another round of drinks. “Jensen,” he starts, and Jensen’s surprised to hear that Misha’s serious, concentrating on what he wants to say. “You ever think that maybe he’s right?”

Jensen blinks. “What the fuck, Misha?” he bites out.

Misha raises his hands just the slightest bit from the table, submitting. “All I’m saying is that it’s worth thinking about, alright?”

Jensen gets out a miserable, lifeless laugh. “You’re actually suggesting that you don’t exist, you know that right?” A bit of his drunken high disappears at the utterly bizarre direction this conversation has taken. 

“Stranger things have happened,” Misha says, and turns to accept their new beers with a nod. 

“No,” Jensen corrects, “Not really.” 

“Of everyone I’ve ever met,” Misha starts, pausing to take a sip of his beer, “You’re the only person that’s ever bounced between two worlds. And I’ve met a lot of people. I mean, we’re all fucking nuts here, aren’t we? But I’ve never heard anything like that.”

Jensen sits back in his chair, stunned. “I can’t believe you’re actually agreeing with him.”

“Not agreeing with him.” Taking a sip of the beer has left Misha’s top lip wet. He licks it off thoughtfully, shaking his head. “I’m just saying he might have a point.”

“You think I’m insane,” Jensen says, and it’s not a question. His head’s starting to pound, a horrible mix of drunkenness and unwelcome thoughts. 

“Sounds like you don’t have to be,” Misha points out. “He said all you’d have to do is come back with him, right?”

“Yeah,” Jensen says, miserable. “Leave and never come back.” 

A big gust of wind blows through the bar as a new stranger comes in, the rush of air rattling various cups and making Jensen shiver. This is most decidedly not the direction he’d imagined the conversation going, and he’s not pleased. The anger’s still there, always simmering, at Jared and now a bit at Misha, who was supposed to laugh at the idea of insanity and invite Jensen on a adventure to clear his mind. This bone-deep worrying was supposed to be erased; the fear and the memories were supposed to vanish instead of making him think about things he’d buried years ago. 

“I’ll make it simple for you.” Misha’s voice breaks through, and Jensen looks up to see him half-way out of his chair, beer in hand. “What do you want?”

Jensen doesn’t know.

\--

For the first time in ages, Jensen opens his closet. 

He keeps the key in the teakettle shaped like a walrus’ head, a gift from the Queen after he’d baked a particularly amazing batch of cranberry cookies. He’s alone when he takes off the lid and fishes it out – no Jared sitting quietly at his kitchen table, no Misha inviting him out for tea. It’s a sunny day, and the light pours through his windows in patches, brightening squares on his floor. 

The key is heavy in his hand, the metal polished and dense. He fingers it before forcing himself to his bedroom, walking to the forgotten closet in the corner. 

The lock is absurdly big, nearly three times as big as the others in his house, but he supposes it’s a nice decorative touch. Scrolling metalwork branches out from the hole, winding up to the top of the closet like the branches of an ageless tree. The whole thing barely reaches Jensen’s hip, so he gets down on his knees and sticks the key in before he can think, hand pulling at the knob until the door glides open, noiseless. 

His chest is tight, looking at it now. 

Slowly, he brings his fingers up to trace at the edges of the mirror, the edgework simple but handsomely so—miniscule leaves and berries etched into the wood. It’s been years since he’s seen it, but there’s not a speck of dust. 

He remembers the last time he crawled through it, determined to say goodbye. In the end, it was almost absurdly anticlimactic. He’d woken in the bed, like always, eyes turning to find his mother at his side, knitting. 

“What are you making?” he asks, and she jumps, dropping her project on the floor. 

“Baby.” She almost gasps, but recovers quickly, bending down to pick up her needles. The movement sends a rush of her perfume in his direction and he breathes it in, trying to find something comforting in the smell. It always smells different, for some reason. Today it is something sweet and cake-like. 

“Baby,” she says again, getting his attention, and when he looks at her face all he can see is worry. It’s something permanent, now, the lines at her eyes and mouth seemingly deeper each day. “You’ve been asleep for days.” 

“Oh.” There’s not much he can say to that. As always, it’s a bit of a shock to return: trading in freedom and clean air for a body attached to tubes and muscles that have grown weak from disuse. His head’s spinning and his arm aches madly from the needle, but the slightest bit of movement turns his stomach. It’s easier to keep still. “Sorry,” he remembers to add, knowing his mother’s still watching. 

“I don’t want you to apologize,” she says, voice soft. “I just want you to get better.” 

When she says it like that, he can almost believe her. But he knows without a doubt she’ll be talking to the doctor soon, begging for more treatment, new drugs. The white coat will be hopeful, ready to try something different, and Jensen will suffer through whatever new horror they pump through his veins. And as he’s twitching and moaning and clutching his head, he’ll still be alone. There are no drugs to turn back time, no way to reclaim all the hours he’s spent away from school and normality. On a good day, he might find a pretty stranger on their trips to the park, but it doesn’t take much ( _“It’s like I’m losing my grip on reality, you know? Last night I laid in my bed and watched the walls bend. The floor rippled like an ocean and all I wanted to do is escape”_ ) before they can _see_ the crazy in him. And then they walk away. 

He hasn’t seen his sister or brother in months. Better for them not to be involved, his father had said, and Jensen agrees. Mack is small and scared of needles and Josh visited, but he frowned at the scratches on Jensen’s arm, the tubes, the dictionary of drugs on the chart and he asked why Jensen made up such stupid stories. 

It makes him remember what he came here to do. He clears his throat, the sound loud and scratchy in the silence of the room. “What are you making?”

His mother frowns like she can’t possibly comprehend why he would ask, then she looks down at the rows of green stitches in her hand. Reminding herself. “A hat,” she says plainly, and smiles. “For you. We’re supposed to have a terrible winter.” 

Jensen blinks at her. It’s Spring, now. He can hear the birds through the window outside. “Thank you,” he says instead of bothering to work out the details. The weather never matters. “It’s—I like green.”

Her hand is soft when it touches his cheek. “I know, baby.” 

He tries to smile at her, tries so very hard to summon up the twist of his mouth. He knows it’d make her happy. But his lips are chapped and aching and something stops him, holding him back. “I’m thirsty,” he says, and takes in as much of her as he can: the stain on her collar, the missed button on her cardigan, the rushed messiness of her hair. He loves her, he thinks, but he doesn’t love her enough. “Could you get me some water?”

She smiles instead of answering, setting down his hat on her chair when she stands up. 

He watches her walk away from his bed, eyes wet. He doesn’t cry, but his heart aches a little more than usual when she turns the corner. 

It’s not hard to find the rabbit hole, anymore. It’s nothing physical, more like a gap in his vision that he can choose to see when he pleases. He visualizes himself walking forward and falling and in between one breath and the next, he’s gone.

Jensen still remembers that day, the way he’d crawled out of the mirror and locked it up tight. He hasn’t looked at it since, and now his hands shake as he runs his fingers over the edges, remembering his mother, remembering everything that Jared had said. He thinks about realities and hand-holding and Brown Rabbits and the edges of something he’s kept buried for a long, long time start to peek out. 

He shuts the door, keeping the key in the lock.

\--

“We’re talking,” Jensen says one morning, striding into the kitchen and viciously pulling out a plate of muffins. He’s known since the minute he opened his eyes that Jared would be sitting at the table, silent as usual. He can feel Jared’s presence at his back, knows that his eyes are on Jensen as he moves from the pantry to the sink for a clean dish. “We’re talking, but don’t expect me to be nice.” Only then does he turn around, raising his eyebrow in the general direction of the table. 

Jared looks shocked, but he manages to nod. He starts to speak but it doesn’t work right away. Shifting his weight on the chair, he clears his throat. “Okay.” 

“Apple or cranberry?” Jensen demands, and doesn’t wait for a response before he grabs two of whatever’s nearest his right hand. “You’re getting apple.” 

A small, tentative smile appears on Jared’s face, but he tempers it down quickly like he’s not sure it’s allowed. “Okay,” he says again. 

“If you get crumbs on my floor, you’re cleaning it up.” Jensen points a schoolmarm finger at Jared likes he’s done a thousand times before, clinging to their past. He ignores the way this reunion makes him feel uncertain all over again (is it too soon for forgiveness, was it too big of a lie?), but then he looks at Jared’s stupid floppy hair and his monstrous feet and the way the back of his shirts always seem to get stuck in his pants and he can’t not sit down next to him and feel a little glad. 

“Yes, sir,” Jared says back, prompt, and it’s his seriousness more than anything else that makes Jensen laugh. Jared can’t tame his smile, then. It’s still a little cautious, but there’s hopefulness to be found. 

“You’re not off the hook,” Jensen reminds him, and then stabs into his muffin. Rolling around the first bite on his tongue, he decides it’s better than anything he’s tasted in weeks. 

\--

Jensen would like nothing more than pretend the past few weeks haven’t happened, that he hasn’t been sick with thoughts and opening closet doors and talking with Misha late into the night. The change inside him feels impossible and unwieldy, so new that he knows it’s vulnerable. 

So, yes. Walking near the river, listening to Jared happily catch him up on his family news and warily, since it’s been discussed, about his other patients and the pranks he’s played on the hospital staff. Jensen appreciates that Jared’s not attempting to shove it all under the rug, but they still haven’t discussed Jensen. They haven’t talked about Wonderland. 

Jensen has to work up to it in stages, opening his mouth to speak the words and then closing it time and time again. His palms are embarrassingly sweaty, and he wipes them off on his pants. Jared had stopped the multi-colored fish in the river and has since launched into a grand story involving fish hooks and rusty pliers when Jensen cuts him off. 

“I know I’m insane, okay?”

Jared goes quiet.

It feels wrong to admit the words, but Jensen says it again. “I know I’m insane.” His heart’s beating fast, it all somehow feeling more true now that Jared’s heard the words. He watches as comprehension blooms on Jared’s face, the joy in his eyes nearly tangible. Which makes it hard to say what he needs to, his voice low and cautious. “But that doesn’t mean I want to come back.” 

The hurt on Jared’s face feels more terrible than Jensen had expected. 

“Are you worried about your body?” That detail _had_ crossed Jensen’s mind and it must show on his face, even if it isn’t his biggest worry. Jared picks up on it, rushing forward with his words. “I read all about your medication, Jensen. I can’t—I can’t believe they had you on that shit. They were trying to treat the wrong thing. It wouldn’t be like that,” Jared is quick to assure, and he must forget the past few weeks of silence because he walks forward, gripping Jensen’s hand. “You don’t need them. If you know—really know—that Wonderland’s not reality then you’ve won. You were confused, before.” He’s speaking faster as he goes along, so earnest, and Jensen’s struggling to catch up. “I think—I think you were lonely and scared and Wonderland was exactly what you thought you needed. You don’t, anymore.”

Jensen’s finding it hard to breathe. “Why’s that?” he asks, feeling so lost. “I don’t know my family, anymore. I never had any friends. My body’d be…I haven’t moved in _years_ , Jared, and I don’t have a degree. Who the fuck would hire me? I never graduated high school.”

“I’m not saying it wouldn’t be hard,” Jared allows, stubbornness and care mixed together. “But I’d help you. You’re ridiculously smart, and no kind of cooking school could teach you what you already know. You’re brilliant, Jen. I know the world would see that.” 

Jensen’s cheeks are a bit flushed now, but he’s shaking his head. Lost. He’s so lost. “I have a life here,” he says sadly. “I have my cooking and Misha and the market and I’ve got—” He stops himself from blurting out _you_. 

Jared’s sadness is a visible thing. “And that’s enough? That’s all you want?”

Jensen is powerless to respond. He’s lost in his head again, thinking of too many things at once. What he’d be leaving, what he’d be trading it for. And then the moment stretches on and he’s too tired to think, exhausted enough that he stares at the fish in the river, watching them swim past the weeds and each other.

“You’d have me,” Jared adds quietly. And when Jensen looks at him, his eyes grow wider, more unsure. “If you wanted me, you’d—” He swallows. “You’d have me.”

“Jared,” Jensen says, broken. He has no idea what to say. “I—”

“Just think about it,” Jared blurts, cutting him off. “Promise you’ll think about it?”

Jensen can’t tell him how much he’s already thought. But from the look on Jared’s face, he’ll keep trying. He’ll keep trying to make sense of it all. 

\--

“Well, what are the other people’s like?”

They’re on a hill, safely sitting on a patch of grass clear of flowers. Nighttime is fast approaching, but some of the flowers are still drowsily singing, faces arched toward the last of the light. 

“Hmm?” Jared turns his head away from the horizon, and Jensen can’t help but appreciate the way the setting sun washes his face in a bit of gold. He looks healthy and so inexplicably real and Jensen aches with it, a little. He can’t help but want.

“The other people you’ve done this with,” Jensen says again, clearing his mind. “The comatose. What are their minds like?”

Jared lets out a sound that’s a mix of harsh air and laughter. “Nothing like this,” he admits, and Jensen’s pleased to hear the awe in Jared’s voice. “Not even close.” 

Jensen smirks a little, rearranging himself on the blanket. He keeps his eyes on the stitching when he asks, “No singing flowers?” 

Jared snorts. “No singing flowers.” There’s a small stretch of quiet when Jared’s obviously thinking, lips pursing and relaxing as he sorts through his memories. “When you first start training,” Jared begins, and stretches out on the blanket, resting his head on crossed arms. “You start with the minds of the sane. The healthy and happy ones. I was paired up with this guy named Greg. Married, three dogs, really fond of baseball. We’d been training for weeks on what to expect, how to handle what we’d see, and I guess I was a little scared, you know? Entering someone else’s mind, poking around in their thoughts. Kind of intimidating.” 

Jensen nods. He can imagine. 

“Yeah,” Jared agrees. “The very first time, you’re in there for ten, fifteen minutes tops. Just long enough to see what it’s like and to hopefully find the person you’re connected to. And I did, right away. I was dumped in the middle of a baseball game, right in the stands. Greg was just sitting there enjoying the fifth inning, and we talked about what his wife was making for dinner.” Jared stops to laugh and shrug as best he can, looking up at Jensen. “The scariest part about it was how normal it was. Everything felt real. Expected.” 

“And the comatose?” Jensen prompts.

Some of the playfulness immediately drains from Jared’s eyes. He must be able to tell that Jensen notices, because he finds a smile and nods. “Yeah, it wasn’t—definitely not the same. It’s like walking into a ball of cotton, or something. Everything’s muffled. It’s hard to find the person you’re looking for, mainly because they lock themselves away.”

“How’s that even possible?” Jensen struggles to understand. “You’re in their head. Where exactly could they hide?”

“Well, yeah, I’m in their mind, but that doesn’t mean I’m welcome. Doesn’t mean they want me there or even know that I’m there. It was really typical with people in comas, that hiding. S’why they’re in a coma to begin with, if you think about it. They’re not in their mind like they should be. I mean, they _are_ , but it’s on a different level, you know?

The average person, the person that sleeps and dreams and wakes up to drink coffee and goes to work and fucks his pretty wife and all that, _that_ person is present. That person I can find. But whatever happens to the brain when people go comatose, it acts like some kind of a trapping mechanism. The person’s stuck on a different plane of their subconscious, either completely unaware of it or aware but without the means to escape.”

“So you help them escape?” 

“Yep,” Jared says, and Jensen notes that he sounds a bit drained. A bit more tired than he did before they came to the hill. “So you go into their mind and there’s that emptiness I told you about. The cotton. You’re lucky if you can find a table, a chair, a light bulb, much of anything. If you look long enough, though, you’ll find some kind of a door. It’s always locked, but that’s where they are. That’s where they’re trapped.”

“Oh,” Jensen says, mind whirring with the thought of it alone. “And this…other place? Like, behind the door? What’s back there, besides them?”

“Dunno,” Jared sighs. “That other plane of their subconscious, I guess. We were told never to go in and see for ourselves. You can probably see why that’d be dangerous.”

Jensen can see. 

A big breath and a sigh and Jared seems centered again. A ladybug—bigger than usual and vividly red and black—lands on his finger and he smiles at it, letting it explore the hills of his knuckles and the skin of his palm. “I helped a lot of people come back, working like that. You talk to them through the door, you convince them what’s real, and you hope they decide to come out.” Jensen stiffens a little at this, but Jared doesn’t seem to be mindful of the connection. “They finally open up the door and it’s like…someone flips a switch. All that cotton? All that nothingness? It’s washed out by color and sound and the things they like best. And that’s when you know it worked. One of the best feelings in the world.”

“I have color,” Jensen says, for no reason at all. 

The blanket makes a quiet sound when Jared shifts to look at him, eyes assessing and soft. “You really do,” he says. “More color than anyone I’ve ever met.” 

Jensen laughs a humorless laugh. “S’because I’m insane?” 

“Possibly,” Jared concedes, but he doesn’t sound teasing or too scientific. He sounds honest. “Or maybe this is what the mind should be like, if we didn’t let the world shape it for us. Maybe our minds need more color.” And then he’s looking at Jensen with a smile, a fond smile, and something in Jensen’s chest bends and twists with the way it makes him feel. 

“I’m a fan,” Jensen says, trying to sound light. 

He looks away from Jared to the hills of the world sketched out against the horizon. He can spy the edge of the forest and the road that cuts through it, leading whoever follows it to the castle and city beyond. With night approaching, Jensen suspects a more normal world would feel darker; here, the lack of the sun only highlights the light of the moon. Reds are replaced with blues and soft whites, and a stunning day transforms into a stunning night. 

“It’s beautiful here,” Jared says, reverent, because he must be looking at the same thing. Jensen gets to revel in his words for all of two seconds before he feels a hand on his own, holding tight until he looks at Jared’s sad face. “But it’s not real.” 

This time, Jensen manages to stay calm. He can feel the urge to stand up and shout thrumming in his veins, but he takes in a deep breath and looks back at Jared, steady and equally cheerless. “It’s real to me,” he says quietly, because he’s helpless to say anything else. 

Jared looks at him, long enough that Jensen wants to squirm. And then he looks away, squeezing Jensen’s hand once, ever gentle. “I know.” 

\--

The second Jared appears in his kitchen, Jensen knows something’s wrong. 

Jared’s eyes are red and tense, the muscles of his arms flexing and releasing with some inner kind of anger or sadness or both. He looks at Jensen and says it, right away. “They’re pulling me out.”

Perhaps it’s absurd, but Jensen stays where he is, wet towel in his hands at the sink. “From what?” he asks numbly, refusing to think.

“The program’s shutting down,” Jared grits out. “All of our property, all of the machines, our records, all of it. It’s all being seized.” He laughs a humorless laugh. “Apparently the government’s having second thoughts. I’m—I’m lucky I got here at all.”

Jensen’s heart rushes from a normal kind of rhythm to something impossibly fast. The towel drops to the floor. “How long do you have?” he manages to ask. 

“No fucking clue,” Jared’s voice breaks, his hands coming up to clutch at his hair, gripping tightly before they drop back to his sides. His body’s shaking, buzzing with the news and what it means. The ramifications. 

The fucking ramifications. 

There’s no way to breathe when Jensen thinks about that. It’s ridiculous, it’s _too soon_ and they’ve only just started to pick up where they left off. They went swimming yesterday, he thinks wildly, just yesterday they kissed by the dock and lost their oars in the ocean. Jared had been wearing a stupid shirt—a _yellow_ shirt—and Jensen had teased him about it on the way home. They’d been planning a trip to the mountains. Jared had finally met Misha over a pint and Jared high on caterpillar weed was the most ridiculous thing Jensen had ever seen, but Misha took to him immediately, patting his back fondly when Jared coughed out the smoke. There’s a cooling pie on the countertop for today and it’s _too soon_. 

The unfairness of it all comes falling down on him in the next instant, spurring his feet forward until he’s crashing into Jared, fingers pulling tight at Jared’s shirt, squeezing him until he’s sure that Jared can’t breathe. 

Jared clutches back just as tightly, choking out apologies and trying his best to sound comforting. “I don’t know, Jen,” he says, voice rough. “Maybe they’ll—they could okay it again. I just—I don’t get it. We’ve saved so many people.” 

Jensen has no clue what to say. Gripping at Jared, he still has a view of the window. It’s a perfect day. He knows beyond a doubt that the water of the ocean would be ideal, that the wind on the beach would dry them in a matter of minutes without feeling chill. They’d pass Florence on the way and more than likely run across a lost rabbit. Today can’t be the end. 

“Fuck,” Jared bites out sharply, suddenly squeezing harder than before. Then Jensen _can’t_ breathe, not until Jared lets go, gripping at Jensen’s shoulders and tugging him away until they can see each other. 

And then Jensen knows why: Jared’s hands are shaking and for the first time, he notices the fadeout on the edges of Jared’s face, the way they seem to flicker in and out like an ancient television. “Oh god,” he says. 

“I’m so sorry,” Jared blurts, “I’m so sorry for everything, alright? For—for lying and making you think about the past and for being such a fucking idiot for so long. I know what I’m asking is impossible okay? I know it. You’d be giving up everything you’ve known for so long, but it’s—I don’t know how to tell you that it’s worth it, but it is. You deserve better.” More flickering, now, and the strain in Jared’s face increases by the second. “And I know it’s probably too soon to say, but I love you, and—”

He’s gone. 

Jensen’s left clutching at empty air, blinking at the space Jared left. _Not enough time_ is all he can think, and surely Jared will reappear at any second. Surely he will pop back and it will be an awful, ridiculous joke that Jensen will hit him for. Repeatedly. 

But as the minutes pass and nothing happens, something starts to sink in. Jensen has yet to move, but he finally lurches forward to the kitchen table, sitting down. The clock ticks in the silence left behind and Jensen’s mind is blank. 

So he waits. 

\--

“You look miserable, baby,” says Florence.

Jensen wishes he could argue, but he knows without looking that he _does_ look terrible. He’s the stereotypical man in mourning: clothes rumpled and unkempt, eyes red from not sleeping. At least his eating hasn’t changed: he’s baked for hours and hours in some kind of self-imposed marathon and he’s tasted it all. Everything. All of them perfect. 

But it really doesn’t change a thing.

“Not really been the best week,” Jensen mutters, hand rubbing over his face. If he closes his eyes for too long, he hears Jared’s words again. They’ve been repeating in his head over and over without end, morphing until it’s just a blur of emotion. 

“So I hear,” Florence replies, in that perfectly honest way. “He’s gone, huh?”

“Yep,” Jensen says, tonelessly.

“You sure?” 

He nods. He knows it more than anything, bone-deep. Jared’s gone. He’d have come back if he could. 

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Florence’s petals brush Jensen’s hand, consoling. She sighs and stretches her leaves into the light, seemingly for a lack of anything better to do. Humming as she thinks, she eventually says, “I think you were pretty fond of him.” 

Jensen has to snort at that, a natural response. “You could say that,” he answers, and banishes the memories before they can pop up again. There’s really no use in dwelling over something so hurtful, and Jensen’s pretty sure he’s carrying around enough hurt to last several lifetimes. Several _awful_ lifetimes, in fact. 

“You could get him back.” 

Slumping, Jensen nods his head. “I know,” he says, and wishes Florence’s words came with a new and grand revelation. But it doesn’t. It’s obvious, it’s clear that he wants Jared. He wants his smile and his goofy chatter and he really wouldn’t mind having it for forever, it’s just not that simple. 

He looks up again at the field. It’s early morning. His pants must be soaked from the dew but he can’t bring himself to care. He stares out at the same sight he’s seen for years, _centuries_ , it feels like, and compares it to what Jared’s told him about New York. About France and Jared’s own house and a million other skylines he’s never gotten to see. He breathes in the smell of the grass and remembers how burnt it felt back home, how he’d stepped on a thorn when he was five. The differences are astonishing. 

“I don’t know what it’d be like,” he says honestly, and the fear flares up again. “I’m not—I haven’t lived there in years. Things have changed.” He stops to suck in air, blowing it out roughly through his teeth. “My body’s fucked, I know that, but that can get better. Jared said it would get better. He kept talking about cooking school and bakery shops and he has an apartment, you know? And I don’t even think my parents know I’m gay, but I’d move in. He said the oven’s shitty, but we could always get a new one. But there’s—you have no idea how cruel people are, out there. They judge you and they’d never give me a job and I could never mention Wonderland, not to anyone. I couldn’t ever come back.”

Florence gives his rambling speech the justice of a few seconds of silence. He’s not looking, but he knows she’s processing. “But he’d be with you, right?”

“Right,” he says helplessly, because it’s the truth. The scary truth that makes his decision one worth considering. It’s the same thing he keeps coming back to, too. 

“Sounds like it could be a pretty good adventure,” Florence observes, her tiny smile flaring up at the end, and Jensen has to nod the tiniest of nods because there’s really no denying it. 

It does.

\--

There’s no particular moment of clarity. It comes gradually, over the space of many days and many chats with willing and unwilling participants alike. 

In the end, Misha tells him to picture Jared’s face when he wakes up. Jensen helpfully points out that Jared wouldn’t be there, most likely. He’s not family and without whatever license let him work on Jensen in the first place, he’d have no right to be in the room. He’d be away, perhaps at home or a movie or a friend’s barbeque, for that matter. After he endured the initial poking and prodding of the doctors (although Jared had said they’d taken him off the drugs ages ago), there’d be phone calls. He doesn’t even _have_ Jared’s number, but he’s sure it’d be reasonably easy to find. Surely they’d let him contact the man that was messing around in his own goddamn head. And if all else failed, he’s sure he could describe Jared to the last mole and scar. How many gargantuan mind-explorers wore My Little Pony t-shirts, anyway? 

He points this all out very reasonably. But then Misha tells him to shut up. 

So he imagines.

Waking up would come slowly, a drawn-out rise like a swim to the surface after a deep, deep dive. He’d focus on breathing at first, smelling the starch on the sheets and the faint perfume of the flowers on his nightstand. There might be a television. It’d be playing something mindless, perhaps a game show, and Jared would be busy describing the contestants to the empty room. 

“So there’s this lady, right? And I swear to god her hair is teased taller than my arm. Although, and don’t tell anyone, okay? But I kind of want to know what conditioner she uses. It looks pretty shiny. And the guy to her right? His name is Eduardo and he _looks_ like an Eduardo. You know what I mean? Like, I’m half-convinced he was born with a nametag.” 

He’d blabber on equally meaningless things for awhile and then, amazingly, Jensen would open his eyes. 

Maybe Jared wouldn’t know right away. He’d still be staring at the screen and Jensen would get to take in his tan skin and the tag sticking up on the back of his shirt and he’d know he made the right decision. Jared would be fiddling with something in his hands, occasionally stopping to rub at Jensen’s leg and then he’d know. 

Jensen would be awake and waiting and Jared’s mouth would open in shock as their eyes met, speechless as Eduardo wins the round. 

Then there’d be kissing. A ridiculous amount of sloppy, uncontrolled kissing as Jensen would struggle to remember how his old body worked, weak arms struggling to rise around Jared’s neck. But Jared would be a gentleman, surely, and he’d lean down and lift the arms himself, petting and kissing and whispering things in between that Jensen would blush about. 

There’d have to be doctors, unfortunately. They’d come in and be amazed and poke and prod and Jensen would be a miracle, the subject of a hundred new medical journals, but Jared would stop them from doing anything too dramatic. 

His family would come. He’d endure the tears of his mother and the shocked face of this father and he wouldn’t recognize his brother or sister but maybe he’d hug them, too. Just because. 

There’d be healing and struggling and fuck you’s thrown across the room and Jensen might regret his choice just a little when he eats Jell-O for the fifth day in a row, but Jared would be there. He’d be there when Jensen left the hospital and blinked at the sun. He’d be there when they drove to the park, when they arrived at his apartment, when they unpacked and kissed and fucked on the kitchen floor. 

The bed would be too small. Jared would undoubtedly spread out like a starfish and Jensen would bitch because his bed in Wonderland was _huge_ , thank you very much, and then he might feel a small stab of pain. His oven is gone. It had rained on the drive to Jared’s apartment. They’d be a few hours from the nearest ocean and not a single king or queen would know or appreciate Jensen’s skill in the kitchen. There’d be no Misha and no Florence and there might be nosy neighbors, but none of them would boil frog legs in a magical potion. 

Hopefully.

But then Jared would touch his arm and Jensen would stop staring at the ceiling. He’d turn his head and he’d look at Jared and he’d smile. He’d get one in return, of course. And nothing in Wonderland could compare to that. 

This is what he tells Misha and this is what he thinks as he kneels in front of the mirror. 

He’d baked a pie that morning, just because. He left it cooling on the counter, a note attached for Misha warning him not to eat it all in one sitting. In his bedroom, he can still smell it: the sweetness of the caramelized sugar, the spice he’d added to the apples. It smells rightfully amazing, but he’s not tempted to turn back. 

It’s easier than he ever remembers to slide his legs through the mirror. They feel weightless in the space between this world and the next. Pulling in a deep breath, Jensen thinks about his future. For the very first time, he’s excited to wake up. 

 

THE END


End file.
